As Deep as the Sky
by Scribbler
Summary: A collection of short vignettes about life, love and everything in between. 63: Mai wakes up in hospital, head shaved, with no idea how she got there.
1. Get Outta My Head: Amane

**Disclaimer****: **So very not mine.

**A/N****:** Okay so the brief was this: Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like, turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle, then write a ficlet related to or inspired by each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!

**A/N Part Deux****:** Nobody is to laugh at the things I have on my music player. Also, these are NOT SONGFICS! The songs are just for inspiration.

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_**As Deep as the Sky**_

© Scribbler, August 2008.

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**1. Outta My Head – Ashlee Simpson**

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Amane liked the pretty necklace Daddy brought back from his trip. She liked it so much, in fact, that he made it into a gift for her. She wore it proudly, telling everyone that _her_ Daddy had dug _her_ jewellery up in _Egypt_, which made it way better than anything from the expensive jewellers' in town.

Ryou said it was an ugly thing, though he stopped when her bottom lip trembled and she started to cry.

"I'm sorry! It's all right, poppet. It's not ugly. I think it's very, uh, beautiful."

Amane wore her necklace all the time, like she used to wear her Spider-Man socks until they were so encrusted with dirt they practically marched into the washing machine on their own. She even wore it to bed, and tucked under her jumper at school. Somehow it never stuck out so the teachers could see it and make her take it off, and she sat at her desk feeling like she had a glorious secret.

Gradually she started to feel much more tired in the morning, as though she'd been running around playing games at night instead of sleeping. She yawned at breakfast and fell asleep in Maths, and spent playtime curled up in a corner of the library, snoozing until the librarian made her leave because her snores were too loud. She lost weight, suffered from excruciating headaches, and her smile started to fade as she discovered marks and welts on her skin in the mornings that nobody could explain.

"People are going to start thinking we're abusing her," her mother hissed to her father, who just looked bemused, like all scholars who are more concerned with books and research than people.

"I'm scared, Ryou," Amane confessed one night. "What's happening to me?"

"Nothing's happening to you."

"Jamey Lynch got marks on her arms and legs and was tired all the time right before they found her leukaemia. She died. I don't want to die!"

"You're not going to die."

"I'm _scared_." Fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

Ryou stayed in her room after that, his comforting presence allowing her to get her first proper sleep in months. Amane snuggled down, happy to know her big brother was there to protect her if she needed him.

At least until a strange noise woke her up and she discovered herself kneeling over him, a kitchen knife clutched in he fist. She squeaked, which caused Ryou to stir. Stuffing the knife under her mattress, she bounced back into bed and yelped when her necklace knocked against her skin. It was red hot. When she touched it her mind filled with shadows that made her feel like she was drowning, and she could hear someone laughing like a villain cackling in a Disney movie.

The next day she took off her necklace and put it in a sealed plastic bag with the heavy rocks from her beach stone collection, which Ryou had been helping her collect since she was a toddler. She was going to visit Grandma with Mommy today. Grandma lived in a little cottage in the Yorkshire countryside, and they had to pass over a bridge to get there. Amane planned to toss the bag out of the window and into the river.

"You're evil," she said to it, having brought it into the bathroom while she brushed her teeth because she didn't want it out of her sight in case it did something awful. "You should've stayed buried in the desert."

They pulled the bag out of the car wreckage. It was one of the only things not charred beyond recognition. When it came home in the pitiful box of personal effects, Ryou opened it to see his little sister's beloved beach stones and the necklace she'd always refused to take off. He put the stones on his bookshelf and put the necklace around her own neck, playing idly with the spikes when his father told him he'd accepted a lecturing post at the university in his hometown in Japan, so they could get away from all the bad memories in England.

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	2. Bad Day: Anzu, Yuugi

**A/N****:** MyAibou, this one's for you, because there was no way I _couldn't _write this when this song came up. Incidentally, the street names are actually the names of authors on my bookshelf.

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**2. **_**Bad Day**_** – Daniel Powter**

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There was no other word for it. Really. Anzu's day, which had begun with such promise, had turned into a flaming ball of shit, like the kind flushed out of aeroplanes, falling so hard and fast from the sky it had left a crater roughly the size of the Gobi Desert where her self-esteem used to be.

Firstly it was her teacher humiliating her in front of the whole class because she'd forgotten to do her English translation homework. Then, at lunch, Jounouchi and Honda thought it was a brilliant idea to play football with a boiled egg, until it landed on the back of her head and Jounouchi realised he hadn't remembered to boil it before he left for school that morning.

Next it had been the job interview at Teen Scene, the hot new clothing store in the shopping mall that every girl worth her salt wanted to work at. Of them all, only Anzu had actually been granted an interview, _and_ gotten permission from school for an after-school job, only to turn up to find the manager was a Class A perv whose only reason for inviting her today was to ogle her boobs when she tried on the _two sizes too small_ work shirt he'd picked out specially for her when he saw the photograph on her application form.

Then it had been the long trudge home from the mall in her best wedge heeled sandals, picked because they made her legs look great but which, unfortunately, had the tendency to turn her feet into two sentient mutant blisters when worn for more than five minutes. She'd been planning on changing into her flats on the bus, like she'd changed into this please-employ-me-because-I'm-really-responsible outfit on the journey from school to mall, but as she turned left onto Toksvig Avenue two kids blew past her on skateboards and stole her bag. Naturally, running after them was impossible in her wedges, and so she had to watch as they sped away with her purse, shoes, hairbrush, cell phone and half-completed history project.

And her umbrella, which was the worst thing of all when the heavens opened ten minutes later.

By Keyes Street the wedges were dangling from her fingers and her brand new tights were laddered from toe to butt. Her hair was plastered to her head, and she kept her arms crossed because cretins who _did _have umbrellas kept making comments about how they could see her bra through her wet shirt. Her mascara wasn't waterproof and so, now moistened, kept trying to glue her eyelids shut – which was how she walked into a telegraph pole hard enough to knock her right on her butt, ruining her favourite yellow skirt.

"Someone just kill me now," she muttered, getting to her feet in time for a lorry to whizz by, splashing right through a large puddle that'd gathered at the side of the road and sending splashback the size of the Indonesian Tsunami over her. Anzu stood, dripping and open-mouthed. "Oh, give me a freaking _break_!"

Obviously nobody was listening, because at that moment a pickup also went through the puddle with tyres so filthy that Anzu found herself not only sodden, but also covered in mud.

Limit well and truly reached, she turned around, limped to a shop that'd closed up for the evening, slid down the door, put her arms on her knees, her head on her arms, and began to cry. Deep, wrenching sobs worked their way up from the pit of her stomach, making her throat hurt and her chest ache. Anzu didn't often cry, and when she did it was only for a bloody good reason. Today definitely counted.

After a moment, she realised that the rain had stopped. _Well that's something, at least_. She looked up, but her mouth fell open when she met a pair of familiar eyes staring down at her.

"Hey there," Yuugi said, offering one of the two umbrella he was holding over them. "I saw you from my bedroom window. I thought you could use this."

Anzu blinked. In all the fuss, she hadn't even registered her surroundings and realised where she was, nor how close help had been.

But wasn't that always the way with her and Yuugi?

Smiling for the first time that day, she accepted the umbrella with a heartfelt, "Thank you."

"No problem. That's what friends are for, right?"

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	3. If You Come Back to Me: YuugiAnzu

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**3. **_**If You Come Back to Me**_** – Bowling for Soup**

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Yuugi stared at the phone, which buzzed so insistently it skittered off the table and tried to get his bedroom mat to answer it. Despite his prowess with a Duel Disk, he was terrible with cell phones, always pressing the wrong buttons and panicking when they did things he didn't want, but he knew how to answer one. He just didn't want to.

It beeped. Minutes later, when he lifted it off the floor, he saw he had a message waiting. Sighing, his stomach doing that horrible swirly thing, he pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hey Yuugi," Anzu's cheerful voice said through the interference – a lot, since she was calling from the other side of the world. "I guess I missed you again. Wow, your social life has really taken off since I left. I can hardly ever get hold of you anymore. Things are great here in New York – I'm going apartment hunting tomorrow. I'll email you pictures of my new place when I find it. Cheryl says you don't choose a place in Manhattan, _it_ chooses _you_. We'll see how well that goes. I hope everybody's okay back in Domino, Give Jounouchi Ryou, Otogi and Honda my love. I … guess I speak to you later. I hope. Bye."

Yuugi let the phone drop and covered his face with his hands. Since when did he stop taking _Anzu's_ calls?

Since she moved away, and he lied and told her he was happy she was achieving her dreams, even if they took her away from him, that's when. And _especially _since he realised part of him was hoping she'd fail and come back to Japan.

"Yuugi Mutou," he said, voice muffled by his own palms, "you are the worst long-distance best friend _ever_."

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	4. Crashed: JounouchiMai

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**A/N****:** I just realised when I posted the last segment – this is officially my 240th fic here on FFN. Wow. I _officially_ have no life. ;) Also, first person ficlet! Let's play Guess the Narrator.

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**4. **_**Crashed**_** – Daughtry **

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The romance between Katsuya Jounouchi and Mai Kujaku could never be described as a fairytale. At least, not unless you're reading some really messed up fairytales, in which case you need to close the book and stop telling them to your kids at bedtime, unless you want them to grow up to be bank robbers or magical murdering psychopaths or something.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Jounouchi and Mai. So, right, they weren't _conventional_. But then again, who is when it comes to love and stuff? That didn't make what they had any less real. I should know; I was there. Half the time they didn't know it, or refused to acknowledge it, or were flat-out denying it, but their feelings for each other motivated everything they did, from how they brushed their teeth in the morning to how they played card games, how they looked at the world, and how they saw their places in it. And they matched. They really did. Not like two sides of the same coin, or whatever other clichéd junk you can come up with, but like … like … man, I hate coming up with good similes. They just _belonged _together, okay? I didn't like it at first, but by the end not even I could deny they were this big co-dependent ball of angst and issues and sex appeal.

Who else would ever throw down their souls for each other in a heartbeat, or risk everything – life, limb, friendships, sanity – to pull the other one back from the dark?

… Okay, bad example. Yuugi did that a couple of times too. And Anzu. And Seto Kaiba, come to think of it. And … ah, screw it; I need to get less weird friends.

But Jounouchi and Mai … despite everything, they worked. And they were addicted to each other, the way Yuugi was addicted to gaming and Anzu was addicting to making sure the rest of us didn't choke on our own cereal or other motherly stuff like that (except my mom never whacked me in the head for offending her 'feminist sensibilities'). I guess the age gap was kind of creepy if you just saw it written down on paper, but Mai never really grew up as much as she thought she had, and Jounouchi … he grew up way too much, and way, _way _too fast.

I know that part too. I know that part better than Yuugi or Anzu ever did. I used to take him to the hospital when I first got my bike, on Friday nights after his dad had been out for a good time. Or, when we were kids and he'd come to school all unwashed and hungry because it was the only way he'd been able to make it out of the apartment without a broken arm, I was the one who stood up for him and shared my lunch.

I never could figure out why Jounouchi stuck with his dad instead of just moving in at my place where it was safer. My parents offered him our spare room, and they actually _liked_ him (I know – weird). But I guess that's Jounouchi all over: stupidly loyal and devoted when any sane person would've given up and walked away.

That's one of the reasons he and Mai worked. He couldn't leave her to self-destruct, and she couldn't let him sacrifice himself for her. They were one eye-twitch away from matching rooms with padded walls, but what they had? It was real. Realer than real.

And I would've given anything to have something like that, too.

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	5. Groove is in the Heart: YuugiAnzu

**A/N****:** This one was difficult, because I bloody hate this song. I don't know how the hell I even _have_ it in my files.

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**5. **_**Groove is in the Heart**_** – Dee Lite**

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There were some things in life Yuugi had always fantasised about doing: not getting bullied every day, playing Duel monsters and still being taken seriously, making friends, and travelling to exotic locations to name but a few. He'd achieved far more of them than he'd ever thought possible, even in his wildest dreams. All except one.

Until now.

He swallowed. It felt like he was trying to ingest a bowling ball. And all the pins that went with it. _And_ the bowling alley.

"Um …" Argh! He forced his voice down to a level audible to more than just dogs. "Are we, um, meant to be standing this close?"

"It's a waltz, Yuugi. That's kind of the point. Now stop dropping your arm."

He squeaked as Anzu plunked his right hand onto her waist and laced the fingers of his other with her own. She placed her left hand on his right shoulder, elbow slightly bent – and frowned. She straightened her arm, which allowed her to stand upright, but it was still awkward.

Yuugi had known the height difference between them was always going to be a problem. He'd seen ballroom dancers on that competition on TV, and only those around the same height looked any good. A taller man could also make it work because his partner looked tiny and graceful in comparison, but a taller lady always looked a little silly being whirled around the dance floor by a shorter man, like a plastic pinwheel next to a wind turbine with glitter and too much make-up.

He and Anzu were more like an ant partnering a giraffe.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, dropping his hands again – or at least trying to. He blinked up at Anzu, trying to tug his hand out of hers and wincing when she gripped it a little too hard to stop him.

"No, I said I'd teach you how to waltz, so I'm going to teach you how to waltz."

"But -"

"Yuugi, it's the prom in a week, and there is going to be a waltz, and you are going to have to get up and do it. It's an unwritten law of school dances. If you have a date and there is a waltz, you waltz."

Yuugi dropped his eyes, which forced his chin down as well – partly because he was worried Anzu would think he was ogling her boobs from this angle, and partly because of what she'd said.

She let go of his shoulder and hooked her index finger under his chin, forcing his face back up, and his eyes to meet hers. She smiled sympathetically at him. It was the most beautiful, most heartbreaking thing Yuugi had seen in his short life – yes, even more than watching Pegasus steal his grandfather's soul, or watching Atem walk into the afterlife. He'd rescued Grandpa and Atem had gone on to reunite with his family. There were no redeeming features of seeing Anzu smile at him like that; _especially _not when they were pressed so close together.

"Hey, don't worry. We'll have you all trained up and ready to strut your funky stuff in no time. Dancing's like Duel Monsters – it's two fifths skill and three fifths heart."

"Hrrm."

"Besides, if I didn't help you out and you stood on your date's foot, she'd never forgive me."

Kind of like Yuugi still hadn't forgiven himself for not asking Anzu before she took pity on Jounouchi and offered herself as Mai's replacement to make sure he even _went_.

"Now come on. On the first beat of the music, slide forward with your left foot…"

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	6. When Your Heart Stops Beating: Main cast

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**6. **_**When Your Heart Stops Beating**_** - +44**

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"Best friends forever, right?"

They swore it over stacked hands and marker pen, over thrown cards and ancient artefacts, and over the big and the small events in their lives. There for each other, never give up, always together – every promise encapsulated in those three words.

"Best friends forever."

They were there at each other's greatest triumphs and most crushing defeats. They were there to pick each other up when they'd been knocked down, and especially when they'd screwed up and thought they couldn't get back up again. They were there with shoulders to lean on, fists to dispense sense, arms to hug, ears to listen, and always, always voices to say the words that helped most.

"Best friends forever. We're here for you. You can do it. We believe in you."

They were there when any one of them needed the others most, enfolding whoever was their weakest member at the time. They were also there when they didn't _need_ each other at all. They were inseparable. Eventually everybody realised and said so, though there were a lot of raised eyebrows because nobody had predicted this when they first met.

"_They're_ best friends? _Them_?"

"But didn't those guys beat up the little one?"

"Shouldn't that girl be with, y'know, _female_ friends?"

"Isn't the little dude too much of a celebrity for the rest of those nobodies?"

"I don't get it."

They were there, again and again and again. They were pulled apart and came back together, over and over – you couldn't separate them, not really. You could kidnap their souls, injure their bodies, mutilate their souls and slice layer after agonising layer off their minds, like peeling an onion with a scalpel. You could do all these things, but the moment you turned around you'd find yourself facing the others, and when it came to protecting their own they were merciless.

They were there for exams, for growing up, for choosing life paths and just _lives_ to live. They were there when one of their number left for the afterlife through a sliding wall of stone. They were there for comfort and happy memories afterwards – for reassurance that t was for the best, honest, really, even though it hurt.

And they were there when the second of their number joined the first, though this time there was no secret tomb or card game, just blood, failed brakes, the black and white and red stripes of a zebra crossing, and the interminable wail of an ambulance. They were there at the scene, holding hands that still burned even though the marker pen faded years earlier, eyes burning even more at the whispered words that were supposed to comfort and did anything but.

"It'll be fine. Best friends forever, right? We're s-stronger when we're together. Nothing can keep us apart for long."

Stronger together. Survive together. Always together.

But only one of them was there in the ambulance, so small the paramedics allowed him to ride along as long as he promised not to get in the way. Only one of them, and maybe that was _why_ – because it wasn't enough. Darkness and magic couldn't separate them when they needed each other, but the cramped space of a very non-magical ambulance could.

Only one of them felt a slackening grip and saw blue eyes slide shut for the last time.

But all of them cried.

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	7. Scars: Jounouchi, Shizuka, their parents

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**7. **_**Scars**_** – Papa Roach**

* * *

Hebereke Jounouchi stood in the doorway and trembled – not in any sissy way, but with pure rage.

"You're not going."

Fuseiseki kept stuffing clothes into a suitcase. On the bed, Shizuka sat cross-legged, a blanket wrapped around her as if to shelter her from the force of her parents' argument.

"Fu -"

"You can't stop me."

"I … I wouldn't … Shit, Fuseiseki, _please_ -"

"Don't you dare use that kind of language in front of our daughter!"

"Because you don't want me setting a bad example for her?" The rage reared up like a terrible beast inside him. "I think their mother fucking another guy behind her husband's _back_ pretty much has that covered."

Fuseiseki stopped and stared hard at him, brown eyes narrowed. He used to think her eyes were soft as melted chocolate. He was pretty sure he wrote it in one of those god-awful poems her sent her back in college, actually. Now, however, they were hard and assessing – and hurt. He'd hurt her when he said that.

Well, fine. She'd hurt him too.

"I'm leaving," she said, the barest hint of a tremble in her own voice. She zipped the suitcase shut and yanked it by its handle. It wasn't even half full. "And I'm taking the kids with me."

"Oh no you're not -" Hebereke took a step into the bedroom, but she held the suitcase in front of her like a shield.

"Don't you come near me! Don't you _touch_ me!"

What? She was acting like _he_ was the bad guy. He'd never hurt her, not like that.

Except that hurting her was exactly what he'd wanted to do when he found out. He'd wanted to tear both of them limb from limb – his loving wife and her boyfriend. The weight of the desire was like an iron band around his chest, and it frightened him a little, that he was capable of such hatred and such love at the same time. Because he still loved her. As much as he never wanted to see her again, the thought of her leaving just about killed him.

Hebereke frowned, fists opening and closing by his sides. "This isn't … what I wanted."

"It's not what I wanted, either, but it's how things have happened." Still keeping the suitcase between them, Fuseiseki edged to the bed and fumbled for Shizuka's little hand. "Where's Katsuya?"

"How should I know?"

"He's out with Hiroto, Mommy," Shizuka said helpfully.

She wouldn't wait for him. "I'll be back for him. Later. I will. I'll be back for all our stuff. So don't you …" She opened and closed her mouth, then turned her face away, eyes squeezed shut as if in pain. "Come on, honey."

"Where are we going?"

"To Grandma's."

"But she smells like wee and her cat hates me."

"Fuseiseki, wait -" Hebereke caught her arm on the way past.

She didn't shout at him not to touch her this time, but she refused to look at him. Her throat bobbed and she seemed on the verge of tears, until she closed her eyes and sucked every little tick out of her face and posture. When she opened them again a stranger looked back at him – someone blank and totally unlike his passionate Fuseiseki. "I don't regret anything," she said, voice hard and cold.

Instinctively, he let go of her arm.

The front door banged shut. Seconds later a car engine roared.

Hebereke sank into the armchair in the living room and stared around their moth-eaten apartment. It wasn't pretty, wasn't even _nice_, but it was theirs and they'd been happy here – or so he thought. Fuseiseki had made it worth coming home for after each crappy day at his crappy work, doing crappy things and being yelled at by his crappy boss – ten years his junior but with Asshole enough for both of them. He'd lived for her. The kids, too, but they'd both been accidents he was told were happy ones, and in the end it'd always been Fuseiseki first.

"Why?" Hebereke asked, pressing his face into his hands. Eventually he got up and fetched himself a beer from the fridge. It morphed into two beers, and then six. By the time Mrs. Honda dropped Katsuya off, Hebereke could barely see straight and squinted at his son, who seemed to have shrunk to just a pair of brown eyes.

"Dad?"

"C'mere, you." Hebereke wrapped Katsuya in a clumsy, foul-selling hug, ruffling his hair. "I love you kid."

"I saw Mom and Shizuka when Honda and I were at the playground. Where did they go?

His rage stoked up again, making him tighten his hug until Katsuya squeaked in pain. "Away. Your mother's … gone."

"When's she coming back?"

"Forget her; it's just us guys now." _And I'm never letting you go_, Hebereke thought, looking into his son's eyes and both loving and hating what he saw in them. His fists opened and closed again; a reflex that would come to be habit as time went on – as would his coping mechanism for living with a constant reminder of what he'd lost. "Fetch me another beer from the fridge, will ya?"

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**A/N****:** I am by no means an expert, since I use internet translators, but 'Hebereke' is Japanese for 'drunk' and 'Fuseiseki' means 'failure'.

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	8. Son of Man: Thief King

**A/N****:** This one turned out far creepier than I expected when this track started, but just look at the lyrics. The _do_ fit.

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**8. **_**Son of Man**_** – Phil Collins**

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Akefia took up a fistful of sand and let it slide through his fingers. When it was all gone he plunged his other hand into the dune and pulled out another fistful, heedless of snakes or scorpions he could be disturbing. The grains were smooth and rough at the same time, but slipped away as easily as air.

As easily as his family had.

He'd been plagued with dreams of blood, dreams of madness, dreams of power and dark things that lurked in the human heart far more than in the shadows as he'd always believed. He dreamed of his mother's goodnight kiss, which was worse – dreamed of the sound of a cracking whip, of stone meeting flesh and the distinctive noise of blood hitting the inside of metal pots, so much thicker and heavier than water. Most of all, he dreamed of Kul Elna as she'd been, and the different fires that consumed her.

He stood up, his coat blowing around him, and lifted his head to the heavens. He could pick out stars but didn't pay attention to their constellations. They, too, were like grains of sand – too many to count, constantly shifting, plus they were gone when the sun rose. Nothing was permanent.

Jahi, his second, approached and coughed to gain his attention. "Leader, Yafeu is ready."

Akefia said nothing, just turned on his heel and marched to the middle of camp, where a naked man stood tied to a post in the middle of a crowd. He was beaten and bloody, but the blood was old. He was also shivering. Nights in the desert were deceptively cold, and his followers generally covered up it fell. Akefia was the only one who seemed impervious, keeping his chest bare no mater the weather.

When the man, Yafeu, saw Akefia his eyes grew wide and he shook his head, trying to wrench himself free. "Leader, please -"

"You would call me your leader? After you tried to usurp me?" Akefia lifted one side of his mouth at the man, and then reached into his coat for a very special box. He'd purchased it from a magician in a land of foreign dogs some time ago, and it'd ensured his leadership ever since. No bigger than his palm, it still made everyone in the crowd shuffle backwards.

"No, Leader, please – no …"

Akefia opened the box – the only one who could without fear. He prised open the man's mouth, pushed in the glittering green scarab marked with a strange insignia, and held his jaws shut. Yafeu's scream's were muffled, but Akefia took no notice, not even when his throat bulged and the scarab burrowed its way into his stomach and began eating him alive. He kept his hands wrapped firmly around his skull as blood pressed at his lips and bubbled out of his nose.

When Yafeu's breath had stilled Akefia finally took his knife and cut open his belly, only meat now, retrieving his prize and replacing it in the box. The beetle, sated, settled back to wait for the next time he needed it.

Then he turned to his band of mercenaries and outcasts. "Are there any more who would challenge me and turn our purpose to lowlier dreams than those I have devised?"

The answering chorus pleased him.

"Toss the body into the desert. It deserves no burial. The jackals can have it."

Nothing was permanent. Not family. Not home. Not life.

Nothing but the fear of him.

He would see to that.

* * *

**A/N****:** I know, I know, Akefia isn't his _real_ name, and in fact is a product of Japanese fansites, but I thought Thief King was more of as title than an actual name. And frankly the simplified 'Yami' was just a fan-name for Yami no Yuugi until 4Kids got hold of it and made it dub-canon for a while. Akefia seemed as good a name as any for the poor nameless chap. Jahi and Yafeu are both Egyptian names – Jahi means 'dignified' and Yafeu means 'bold'.


	9. Put It Behind You: HondaMiho

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**9. **_**Put It Behind You**_** – Keane**

* * *

"Hey guys, where's Honda?"

Instantly Otogi asked, nobody would meet his eyes. He looked around at Anzu, Yuugi and Jounouchi, but found himself looking at only a variety of profiles and scalps with bad partings.

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it's just …" Yuugi shrugged, but the casual movement was anything but casual. "Today's ... special."

"Huh?"

"We don't bother Honda on this day. We'll get together later, probably this evening, but today?" Jounouchi was better at faking casual. "This is his time, man."

Otogi was still nonplussed. This was the group whose motto of sticking together no matter what was the stuff of legend (and ridicule, depending on who you talked to). Something was definitely up, you could almost taste it in the air, but they were now advocating something other than happy-clappy-kumbaya time? "I don't get it."

Jounouchi shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away. "You're not meant to."

"Jounouchi!" Yuugi threw Otogi an apologetic look before chasing after his friend.

Otogi followed up with an intelligent, "Huh?"

"You only transferred this year," Anzu said, coming up behind him. "You were home tutored before that, right?"

"Yeah. So?" Otogi refused to look uncomfortable about only deciding to try regular school because it gave him a chance to study Yuugi before publicly humiliating him. Even more, he refused to look embarrassed about staying on at school, despite being a child prodigy who finished this level of education at age eight, because for the first time in his life he had friends to make it worthwhile. "Does the mutt suddenly have something against private tutors?"

"No. it's just that you never met her."

"Met who?"

"Miho."

"_Who_?" He turned. Anzu looked him straight in the eye, and not even Otogi could fail to see the raw pain in hers. Anzu had the most expressive blue eyes he'd ever seen, and right now they looked terrible.

"She was a friend of ours. She disappeared. The police never found her, but they're pretty sure she's dead now. Honda was really … he had the most massive crush on her. I think he may actually have been in love with her, but he never got around to telling before she was … before she vanished."

Otogi performed a few numberless calculations in his mind and hissed air between his teeth. "Let me guess – this is the anniversary of her disappearance?"

Anzu nodded.

"Damn."

"It's been two years now. Honda walks her last known path. I think maybe he thinks he'll find something. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. But we'll be there for him later, when he's ready. He doesn't like anybody seeing him when he's thinking about Miho." She tips her head to one side, her gaze assessing. "I think he'd appreciate you there this year."

"_Me_?" Otogi's enmity with Honda was legendary – although admittedly it was mainly over Shizuka, and this Miho chick threw an entire tool box into the works for _that_.

"Yeah. Today, of all days, we need to remember our friends."

* * *

**A/N****:** This one kind of links in with _The Friend That I Was Looking For_, if you'd like to know more about Miho's disappearance, but I tried to make it so that it wasn't absolutely necessary to have read that fic to understand this one.


	10. Red Dwarf Theme: Jounouchi

**A/N****:** One of the problems of sticking rigidly to a challenge is you get thrown curveballs like _this_. Anyway, I've put the first ten chapters of this on my LiveJournal along with .mp3 files of all the songs that have appeared in it, if anybody wants to know what inspired these ficlets.

* * *

**10. **_**Red Dwarf Theme (Extended Mix)**_** – Howard Goodall**

* * *

Jounouchi groaned as the airlock door opened and he staggered out. He hated it in there. Bad enough he was frozen, without it having to hurt like a bitch afterwards. And it hadn't even been that big of crime in the first place that landed him in suspended animation in the first place. Personally, he thought Commander Otogi looked _better_ with a buzz-cut and lipstick, and he'd highlighted the very obvious problem of the commander sleeping too deeply too wake up even if the ship was being attacked.

Not that anyone would actually attack the Red Dwarf, since it was just a mining ship and all, but still. He'd done the officers a _favour_, and they'd just stuck him straight in the cells. Now there was gratitude for you.

_Otogi still made a better butch lesbian than an effeminate man._

Jounouchi expected to see his captain, or at least one of those mangy lieutenants waiting to chew him out some more when he emerged, but was surprised to find nobody around at _all_. Apparently the detention cell had shorted out and that was why he'd been released; not because anybody had pressed a button to let him out.

"Hello?"

Nada.

He stumbled along the corridor and keyed in the pass code to exit the penitentiary area and re-enter the main ship. The door groaned as much as he did. Probably one of the bots needed to get its wheels down here and oil the damn thing. The best technology in the solar system and it still fucked up if you forgot the WD40 – which would probably account for why his cell had shorted out. Well _he_ wasn't taking the flack for waking up early.

"Hey, yo! What's going on here?"

He went from cafeteria to hallway to bunk-rooms to bridge, but there was nobody anywhere. Since the Red Dwarf was six miles long, four miles tall and five miles wide he was tired and bored within half an hour, and there was no way he was going to traipse the entire length and breadth of the ship. Still, it was weird. Usually the place was crammed with people.

Several times he passed piles of dust, like giant mounds of salt. They reminded him of the time he and Honda, a fellow-student from the training programme (who'd done a lot better than Jounouchi and moved beyond his job of refilling the vending machines all trip), had put bio-caplets into some bots' fuel cartridges and watched them explode. It'd been great – seeing their little arms wave about, and smoke coming out of their joints, and then KAPLOOEY! Disintegration. Not that Captain Mazaki had been too impressed. That was the _first _time Jounouchi had ended up in the suspended animation cells, and it hadn't been the last. If they hadn't been lurking in deep space, no doubt he would've been tossed out onto his ear. He got the feeling that sometimes she was considering jettisoning his ass into deep space anyway.

Finally he entered the main control room, but it, too, was empty. "Hey, what the hell is going _on_?"

The computer screen buzzed and a digitised replication of a human face appeared. Jounouchi knew from the training programme that it was meant to resemble the beloved grandson of the man who invented it – though he doubted that was true. Nobody in real life could have hair like _that_.

The image blinked at him in a very human manner. "Oh my."

"Hey, Y.U.U.G.I." Now he'd find out what was up. Y.U.U.G.I. was the most intelligent computer in the universe, after all. "What's going -" Jounouchi's question died on his lips at Y.U.U.G.I.'s next words.

"So one of you humans _is_ still alive."

_One of you …? _"Uh-oh."

Uh-oh was right.

* * *


	11. If She Knew What She Wants: AnzuYugiYami

* * *

**11. **_**If She Knew What She Wants**_** -The Bangles**

* * *

When Anzu found out Yuugi had a dead pharaoh living in his head, she was understandably freaked. When she found out she'd been secretly lusting after this pharaoh, her levels of freaked-out-ness had to invent a new level, just so she could classify how she felt.

How could she not have _noticed_?

As time went on, however, a new question took this one's place: Now she knew they were separate people sharing the same body, how could she choose between them?

Yami was strong and brutal and intimidating. Knowing what he'd almost done to Kaiba on the battlements of Duellist Kingdom gave him a dangerous edge in her mind, and she was at the stage in her life when developing feelings for dangerous things was perfectly natural. The same impulse that had forced generations of teenage girls to bring home partners apparently designed to piss off their parents went to work like an army of sharp-clawed, vicious cats in her bloodstream, slicing her resolve to pieces and letting the rags of her good sense blow in the breeze. Yami was dangerous and mysterious and breathtaking.

And then there was Yuugi – sweat, adorable Yuugi, who'd never said a bad word against anyone and kept his smile no matter what happened to him. Yuugi was like sunshine on a cloudy day, with the uncanny ability to cut through any bad mood and make her grin so much that her cheeks hurt. True, he was naïve almost to the point of distraction, but he was also obliviously brave and reckless in his devotion to his friends. He would literally lay his life on the line for them, and in the same heartbeat invite them over for things kids their age were supposed to do – hang out, watch TV, play games. Yuugi was _normal_.

And finally Anzu asked a better question than 'how could she choose?'

Why would she even want to?

* * *


	12. 3am: JounouchiMai

* * *

**12.**_** 3a.m. **_**– Busted**

* * *

Jounouchi didn't sleep much these days. Partly it was because his dad had taken to slumping on the sofa instead of making it all the way to his own bed. Hebereke's thunderous snores shook the whole apartment, preventing sleep that didn't come out of a pill bottle.

Mostly, however, it was Jounouchi's own brain.

He kept turning things over and over in his head, looking at them from different angles, picking them apart and putting them back together again in different shapes to see whether, if he'd done something different, things might've been different.

Naturally, Mai occupied a large part of these thoughts. His friends were mostly okay from their experiences with Doma. Even Yuugi was doing fine, and he had a repentant Yami to deal with. Mai, on the other hand … Jounouchi hadn't seen her since he duelled her, and that was hardly the best way to remember the woman he was now pretty sure he'd fallen in love with.

Weird how he'd fought against even being her _friend_ to begin with, and now, with her gone who knew where, his heart had forced its way to the back of his ribcage, hopped on the spinal elevator, and was knocking against his brain stem yelling, "You idiot! You're only noticing this _now_? Do you ignore me on purpose, just to piss me off, or are you really that stupid?"

He turned over, but sleep wasn't coming tonight either. Finally he got up, dragged on a pair of jeans and yesterday's shirt (which was actually this _week's_ shirt) and picked up his dad's keys. Hebereke wouldn't notice the car had moved when he got up in the morning.

Jounouchi drove to the richer part of town, parked, got out, stood on the sidewalk and looked up at a window that had remained dark for almost a month now. This was the kind of area where phone booths weren't just for drunks to pee in, and he'd kept back some coins. He always kept back some coins these days.

The connection clicked and whirred. "Hi there, this is the fabulous Mai. I'm not at home right now, but leave me a message, and if you're cute I'll get back to you." A long beep sounded, but he didn't bother leaving a message.

She still wasn't back.

Jounouchi hung up and thrust his hands into his pockets. It was cold out, but he stayed there for half an hour, until a curtain in the apartment below Mai's twitched. Then he went home to his snoring father and a bed that heralded no sleep.

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. "Where _are_ you? I need to you to come home so I can apologise."

His eyes were still open when the sun rose.

* * *


	13. I’ll Take Care of You: The Ishtars

* * *

**13. **_**I'll Take Care of You **_**– Dixie Chicks**

* * *

Isis served the Gebna Makleyah with a watery smile. It was Malik's favourite, though her father complained the cheese gave him stomach cramps. She wouldn't usually make it, but tonight, when she'd seen Malik once again talking to Rishid about the outside world, she'd decided she'd risk her father's disapproval.

They ate in silence. With every bite she expected her father to make some comment, but he chewed and swallowed with obvious distraction. She suspected that she could have served refried toenails and he wouldn't have noticed, but Malik was obviously enjoying the meal and that was enough for her.

Afterwards she was left to clear the table, though as usual Rishid rose to do it. Just as she'd been waiting for her father to reprimand her for making a meal she knew he didn't like, Rishid spent each day waiting for the order that he wasn't to eat with them anymore, and tried to make himself useful so there'd be no excuse to keep him from Malik's side.

It pained Isis sometimes, to see how close Rishid and Malik were. _She_ was Malik's blood-kin, and he loved her, but the fact remained that he was closer to their adopted brother. Rishid doted on Malik, too, so she felt horribly guilty every time she resented their bond.

Tonight Malik wanted to draw pictures. His little face lit up as he crayoned the wonderful things he'd heard about, but never seen in the outside world. Transport fascinated him, since he'd always used this own two feet, and he wanted to know how _much _faster a bus, or a car, or a motorcycle could go.

"One day, I'm going to _ride_ a motorcycle," he said when he was tired and she scooped him into her arms before Rishid could. "An' I'll go fast as th' wuh-wind." He yawned, snuggling close and resting his cheek on her shoulder.

Isis patted his back and tucked him into bed, stroking his five-year-old face and worrying about the future, as well as the pang in her chest whenever she thought about her baby brother's.

* * *

**A/N****:** Gebna Makleyah is a traditional Egyptian food of oven-fried cheese (my old boss used feta cheese, but he told me you could use anything), usually served with lemon wedges and pita triangles.

* * *


	14. My Happy Ending: Vivian, Mai

**A/N:** This ficlet means more if you've seen the original ending of Yu-Gi-Oh!, not the butchered version presented by the dub. Go to www. youtube. com/watch?v (equals sign) vV8lD4ObHNs to see it.

* * *

**14. **_**My Happy Ending **_**– Avril Lavigne**

* * *

"But _why_?"

Mai sighed and kept her arms folded. Somehow that managed to piss Vivian off even more. "I already told you this."

"You told me some pack of hooey about finding yourself and whatever." Vivian fanned her hand as though batting away flies. "I thought we were having fun. We're _slaughtering_ those guys out there." Her hand movement became more decisive, gesturing to the stadium that would be filled to capacity tomorrow. "And now you want to break up the team?"

"There's more to life than Duelling."

"Not much."

Mai hook her head sadly. Vivian was possessed of a powerful urge to fist her hair and smack the other woman's head against the wall a few times. This wasn't the Mai Kujaku she'd seen on TV, full of fire and passion. Nor was she the sad and vengeful creature who'd partnered up with Vivian to slice their way through the Asian Doubles Duelling Circuit. They were a team to be reckoned with, and for the first time since leaving Shanghai for Kaiba's tournament, Vivian was getting the kind of recognition and respect she deserved.

Her hands formed angry fists by her sides. "How can you _say_ that? You used to live for duelling!"

"And now I don't. It's one of the things I've learned since …" Mai trailed off, eyes becoming unfocussed as she looked at the horizon. She did that sometimes, though what she was looking for was anyone's guess. Mai was cagey about her personal life; still, Vivian knew how to spot the fingerprints of an ex on a person's psyche. "There's more to life than duelling."

Trembling with rage, Vivian crossed the three steps between them and really did fist her hand in the back of Mai's hair. However, instead of knocking some sense into her, she instead crushed their lips together. She started it, and she ended it too, then leaned her forehead against Mai's in a far more tender gesture.

"Please, stay," she said hoarsely. "For me."

For a half-second it seemed like Mai was surprised enough to say yes. Then she shook her head. It rubbed their foreheads together, reddening their skin. "I can't. I can't _do_ this anymore."

Vivian stepped away from her, a few long blonde hairs caught under her nails. "Bitch," she spat, whirling on her heel. Bad language wasn't her usual tack, but now it seemed justified.

"There's more to life than duelling, Vivian!" Mai called after her. "There's _living_!"

But Vivian just slammed the door behind her and never saw Mai Kujaku again.

* * *


	15. Teenage FBI: Yuugi

**A/N: **Important lyrics for this one are 'Someone tell me why I do the things / That I don't want to do. / When you're around me I'm somebody else.'

* * *

**15. **_**Teenage FBI**_** – Guided By Voices**

* * *

Yuugi stared down at his own hands and wondered just when he became a superhero.

It wasn't like he ever made a conscious decision to be the good guy in the eternal battle between Light and Darkness. Not that he _would've _picked the dark side if he'd been given a choice, but he just kind of … landed on the front line by accident.

A lot of his life was determined by random chance and accidents.

And his friends, of course.

They'd started out as accidents too – accidental meetings, accidental beatings, accidentally fleeting, he'd thought, but they'd turned out to be so much more than that. They'd come to mean everything to him; as much his family as Grandpa and his mother. His friends had _changed_ him, just as they claimed he'd changed them – though he'd argue until he turned blue that he hadn't changed them at all. They'd always been good people, they just had problems with showing it before, that was all.

"Pshyeah, right," Jounouchi scoffed at this, and for once Anzu actually agreed with him on something.

Yuugi looked between his friends – _all­ _his friends –gathered around his desk full of birthday gifts, and was swamped with sudden memories of all the times they'd risked their lives for him, and him for them. Even Ryou was there, head tucked under Otogi's arm to make sure he stayed put instead of trying to creep guiltily away like he usually did.

Yuugi's eyes filled with tears.

"Yuugi?" Anzu said, concerned. "Are you okay? I know it's not the same without Yami here – I mean Atem, but -"

"No, it's not that," Yuugi sniffed, fumbling in his pocket for a tissue until Honda gruffly thrust out the handkerchief his mother tucked into his blazer every morning. "It's just …" Yuugi couldn't get the words out.

How do you tell people you've just realised _they're_ the reason you're a hero without sounding like a blubbering Oscar winner?

* * *


	16. Gifts and Curses: HondaAnzu

* * *

**16. **_**Gifts and Curses**_** - Yellowcard**

* * *

Jounouchi probably got it, or he would when he pulled his head out of his butt long enough to realise he was in love. Honda couldn't be sure when that'd happen though, so he wasn't holding his breath. Jounouchi was his best friend, could always be counted on to have his back in a fight, and wasn't nearly as dumb as he seemed, but when it came to _emotional_ intelligence he was as useless as a cat-flap in an elephant house.

"Girls are _so_ lame," he'd once said after a group of them beat him up in elementary school.

That was the first time Honda ever spoke to him. Up until that moment, he'd only ever watched the new boy from a distance. Jounouchi was a rough kid from 'the wrong side of the tracks' as Honda's grandmother said, though there was no station in Domino, which confused her grandson. He'd expected the tough new boy to hit back the way he had when the school bully tried to steal his lunch money on the first day. Jounouchi had wiped the floor with that guy, but just stood there as the girls yanked his hair and chanted, "Mommy doesn't want you! Mommy doesn't want you!" because one of them had a friend at Jounouchi's old school and knew why he'd moved. They eventually ran off when Honda came over, giggling and watching to see if they were followed.

"Why didn't you fight back?" Honda had wanted to know.

"Because they're _girls_. You're supposed to protect girls if you're a guy, not sock 'em."

"You're bleeding."

"Yeah, and it stings like a bitch."

Honda had flinched. Bad language was frowned upon in his house. He'd been sent to his room more than once for yelling the worst words he could think of at his sister.

"You got something in your eye?" Jounouchi had asked. "Or are you just a pussy?"

The following punch-up clinched the beginning of their friendship.

It also set the limits for how much Jounouchi knew about girls in relation to himself. Honda lived in a house with a mom, an older sister, a grandmother, and a dad who hid behind his newspaper even at the dinner table. To Honda, females were just a part of life to be ignored and sometimes yell at when they yelled at you. Jounouchi, on the other hand, was adamant that girls were for protecting, and it was easier to just let him think that than try to argue about it.

However, when he was twelve and Jounouchi got hold of a dirty magazine he learned the difference between women and _girls_. Girls then became something to protect _or_ lusted over, and it wasn't until they were fifteen that they figured out girls weren't only authority figures, damsels to protect, or sex objects. Girls had boobs instead of family jewels, sure, but they were still just people, and some of them didn't want to be ogled _or_ protected.

Anzu reminded Honda of his sister. They both bossed him about, although Anzu was snarkier about it. Jun just yelled at him because he was her brother, and that's what he was there for – or so it seemed to him, until she had her first kid and _babysitting_ became what he was there for instead. At first the similarities with Jun made him resent Anzu, but after a while he began to see her as a person, the way Yuugi did. They were both confined to the sidelines a lot, which made it easier – as well as teaching him that she had little authority when it came to stopping her loved ones throwing themselves into the path of danger. He learned a lot about her while Jounouchi and Yuugi saved the world with cards.

She slapped him the first time he noticed the way her chest bounced when she cheered. He was too obvious about it and too effusive with his apologies. The mark didn't go down for hours, a throbbing red reminder that Anzu was a girl who didn't want to be ogled and _didn't_ need protecting.

Until she did.

After everything Jounouchi had ever said about her, Honda assumed Shizuka was a girl who needed protecting too. It made Honda feel good, keeping her safe and away from the bad guys, and fighting over her with Otogi – a real hunter-gatherer sensation. That is, until she proved herself stronger than anyone had thought.

Nobody ever questioned whether Anzu could take care of herself. Or Mai. The were girls who knew themselves better than anyone, and both claimed they one-hundred-percent _didn't_ need to be protected by the guys in their lives. Honda wasn't stupid, but he did suffer from the flaw of taking things at face value until he was proved wrong. That's why he thought Jounouchi was just a brainless thug when they first met. That's why he thought Yuugi was just a sad little gamer he should ignore.

Jounouchi messed up with Mai. They all did. It was a salient lesson for Honda – an also a really confusing one. People were people, regardless of gender. It was one thing to know it, and another to live knowing it. You couldn't pigeonhole people, and you _definitely_ couldn't take them at face value.

He watched his best friend dither over his feelings, not realising what they were and shoving his head in the sand to stop himself from ever learning. He saw Jounouchi's steady slump into melancholy after Doma, but it was only after he found him wandering aimlessly around the park one evening that he came to his own realisations.

"Guys are supposed to protect girls," Jounouchi said as they sat side by side on a swing set meant for kids with shorter legs. "That's what I always thought. Because of Shizuka, y'know? I had to protect her from my dad. And then I couldn't protect her no more, and now she doesn't' _need_ me to protect her. She grew up. And Mai …"

Honda waited.

Jounouchi shook his head and kicked off, swinging back and forth with heels scraping the ground. "Girls are _so_ lame. Even the nice ones. _Especially_ the nice ones."

"Hey, Jounouchi?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you taste your own colon?"

"_What_?"

"Only, your head is so far up your own butt, I was just wondering."

It was late, so Anzu was rubbing her eyes when she opened the door. Sleep fell away and she blinked in surprise when she saw Honda. "What have you been _doing_? You're a mess! Is something wrong?" with the lives they'd led, him turning up like this would _of course _cause her to think the apocalypse was nigh.

"Jounouchi punched me." Honda stated it matter-of-factly, without a hint of whining. He'd punched back, of course. "Anzu, can I talk to you for a minute?"

She was confused. Of course she was. It was nearly ten at night and he was standing on her doorstep looking like a refugee from Survivor. "Uh sure. What about?"

"Something important." Honda swallowed, reminding himself of Jounouchi and Mai and missed opportunities with terrible consequences. They'd be going to Egypt soon. Who knew what they'd find waiting for them there? "Something _really_ important."

* * *


	17. Unforgivable Sinner: Priest Seto

* * *

**17. **_**Unforgivable Sinner**_** – Lene Marlin**

* * *

Seto reached for them in his dreams, but when he awoke it was always just him in a darkened room. He stared at the ceiling or the walls, sometimes rising to pace in an effort to tire himself into a dreamless sleep. Matters of state called for his attention, and he often found his lids closing during daylight hours when faced with these things. As the new Pharaoh, he was responsible for so much, yet what occupied his tired mind was not his position, nor his power or the people who depended on him. He thought only of his cousin and the foreigner girl, both dead now, their blood staining his own hands as though he had slit both their throats himself to benefit from their deaths.

He didn't think of his father. He should have, he knew, but he didn't. His real father, the man he respected, died years ago. The demon who shared his lineage and gave him the White Dragon ka against his wishes was no father of his.

He regretted. Pharaohs were infallible, with no regrets – for what god could regret his decisions?

But Seto regretted.

He regretted becoming pharaoh. He regretted how his world had changed. He regretted the circumstances that had led to him replacing Atem, who'd had barely any chance to imprint himself in history's memory. He regretted that his cousin's sacrifice would not be remembered, that his soul was trapped instead of travelling on to the glory of the afterlife, and that nobody even knew the name 'Kisara'.

Seto stood on his balcony as sunlight streaked the horizon. Each day he was less rested than the last, and the new advisors he'd surrounded himself with were useless. He longed for the wisdom of Atem's court, but they, too, were dead now and their knowledge and insight had died with them. The battle with Zorc had much to answer for.

Kisara. Atem. Their names resounded in his head. The palms of his hands were hot against his eyeballs, pushing them almost inside his skull, but even that brought no relief. Life was harsh, had always been harsh, and death was as much a part of it as breathing.

But Seto regretted those two deaths, and though he attempted to make amends without breaking his promise by honouring the 'White Dragon' and 'Nameless Pharaoh', he would continue to regret for the rest of his lonely life.

* * *


	18. Breathe In, Breathe Out: Ryou Bakura

* * *

**18. **_**Breathe In, Breathe Out**_** – Rachel Stevens**

* * *

The first day back at school was beyond difficult. Until then, Ryou had been able to hide in his apartment and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist. A thousand times over, he thanked whoever invented internet shopping, and also the inventor of cream puffs. He'd never eaten so many of the things in his life. Even when Amane and his mother died his father saw his son's disturbing comfort eating habit and pulled himself from his research long enough to stop Ryou eating until he puked.

But Mr. Bakura wasn't there anymore. He'd distanced himself from his son, and had no idea what he was going through this time. He thought Ryou was toddling along merrily in Domino City, making friends and living a normal teenaged life of school, bad TV and illicit parties.

By the first day of school after Egypt, Ryou felt like he'd gained about twenty pounds, although his uniform still fitted and when he looked in the mirror he couldn't spot any extra chins. His complexion was also completely clear despite all the sugar. He stared at his reflection for a long time, searching his own eyes for a hint of someone else behind them. When he bumped his forehead on the glass he pulled back and shook his head.

_Don't be ridiculous_.

He still ran all the way from his home to the gates of Domino High.

At roll-call he answered his name but kept his eyes fixed on his desk. He worked diligently at his English translation and his History questions until lunch, when he darted into the boys' lavatories and sat with the lid down, his feet braced against the door and his face in his hands. He felt sick, though today he _hadn't_ eaten any cream puffs. He hadn't eaten anything, his stomach too slurpy to tolerate more than water without bringing it back up.

Everything reminded him of the spirit. Every corner, every wall, every second in this place where he should've felt safe made him wonder whether this was all just another illusion. He'd felt safe before, after Duellist Kingdom when he thought the Millennium Ring was gone. He was wrong then. What was to say he wasn't wrong again? What touchable proof did he have that his life wasn't about to be ripped out from under him again? He felt violated, helpless, and so, so vulnerable.

And alone. Most of all, no matter where he was, he felt alone. At home he'd left the television or the radio blaring at all hours of the day and night, trying to fool himself that he wasn't. After all, he was the one hiding from the rest of the world. His choice to keep people safe by keeping away from them. But even at school, with classmates babbling around him, he wasn't fooled. The spirit had made him different in a terrible way he couldn't share with his peers.

When the bell rang and he went back to class his eyes and throat felt dry, though he hadn't been crying. Weirdly, he hadn't cried once during this whole ordeal. He promised himself after Amane's death that he'd never cry again, though now he couldn't remember why he made that promise. Was he trying to pay penance for not being able to protect his baby sister?

What kind of penance did you pay when your hands had been used to _murder_ people without your knowledge? Was ignorance really an excuse?

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't hear someone call his name, and jumped when they touched his shoulder. Her nearly fell out of his seat, and was only stopped by several pairs of hands hoisting him back into it.

"Hey, Bakura," said Yuugi.

Ryou blinked at him. "Uh …"

"We saw you, um …" Yuugi looked uncomfortable, glancing at the others with him for help.

Ryou looked at the other four faces – Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu and Otogi, all people who'd helped Yuugi in his quest in some way or another. Yuugi had his support network to help him deal with being possessed by an ancient spirit, although he'd been upset when his yami left him. Evidently their bond was better than the domination visited upon Ryou by the Spirit of the Ring.

"Can I help you with something?" Ryou asked, wishing the teacher would hurry up and get there to start afternoon lessons. These people understood, to a degree, what he was coping with. Or at least they could sympathise.

But what if this was still a lie-life? They'd be in danger if they were near him and the spirit erupted again.

"No, but you can let us help you," Jounouchi said bluntly.

"What?"

"You haven't been answering your phone," Anzu said in a kinder voice, glaring at Jounouchi. "Or your door. We were worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"Dude," Honda laid a friendly hand on Ryou's shoulder, "it's okay. You don't have to handle things alone."

"Not anymore," Yuugi added. "We're your friends, Bakura. We're here for you if you need us."

Ryou shook his head. "I don't -"

"And _wanting_ us around isn't the same as _needing_ us," Otogi broke in, stabbing one long finger down on Ryou's desk.

Ryou stared at them again, and something inside him … unclenched. Part of his brain still wailed that this was a bad decision, and that he wasn't much of a friend putting them in danger just so he didn't have to feel alone anymore. However, his heart was more grateful than that, and drowned it out. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

The shadows on Yuugi's face cleared. "Would you like to come over to my house after school? We're all doing our homework together."

"Because English translation is a bitch," grumbled Jounouchi. "But you're from England, right? So you could just give us all the answers - ow! Anzu!"

"Stop taking advantage. And don't use such horrible language."

"So, Bakura, are you interested?"

Ryou met Yuugi's eyes. They were clear and totally his own, and Ryou could see himself reflected back in them. "Um, yes. Please. But … but please call me Ryou." He took a breath. "You've known me long enough now to drop the formality, I think."

When Yuugi Mutou smiled, Ryou Bakura's chest felt less like it was about to explode with tension.

He had his own support network too, and it wasn't just a legion of cream puffs.

* * *

**A/N****: **According to the YGO Encyclopaedia, cream puffs are Ryou Bakura's absolute favourite food.


	19. Far Away: AnzuYuugi

**A/N:** I'll admit that this one is probably my favourite in the whole collection so far.

* * *

**19. **_**Far Away **_**– Nickelback **

* * *

Jounouchi leaned towards Honda without taking his eyes off the scene in front of them. "Reckon it was worth getting a ticket?"

"I told you before; you're not going to get a ticket. The light was amber, not red. You didn't run a red light." Honda considered this. "Not that it wouldn't have been worth it if you had."

"I hear you. This has been _way_ too long in coming."

"You know," Otogi interrupted, walking up to them across the airport arrivals lounge, "you guys could've just waited for me to come and pick you up. It wasn't _that _far from Ryou's apartment to yours. You didn't need to steal your dad's car, mutt."

Beside him, Ryou blinked. "Is that -?"

"Yup," Honda and Jounouchi replied in unison.

"And are they -?"

"Yup."

"Wow."

"Wow is right. We _would_ have waited for your slow ass to arrive, Otogi, but it would've been cruel to keep them waiting any longer than they already have. I mean," Jounouchi spiralled a hand at the wrist, "they've been really dumb about the whole thing since they were twelve. That's six years of dumbness, a couple of life or death situations, plus a few thousand miles of separation before they figured out they're completely in love with each other. Adding being late to meet her flight to all that would've been like the last steps in a long walk off a short pier into the Crazy Sea."

"'Dumbness'?" Otogi repeated. "Is that even a real word?"

"Shut up, pretty boy."

"Why Jounouchi, I had no idea you thought of me that way."

"Huh? No, I never meant -"

"Will _both_ of you shut up and let me enjoy this?" Honda snapped.

"I never figured you for a closet romantic," said Otogi, but left off baiting Jounouchi to join in watching. "Have they come up for air yet?"

"Nope." Honda checked his watch. "Eight minutes and counting."

"Her arms have got to be tired." Otogi tipped his head on one side. "They're causing quite a stir. That guy in the Hawaiian shirt just took a photo of them."

"He was taping them earlier, but he ran out of battery. He must've gone to the gift shop for one of those disposable cameras."

"Shouldn't we stop him invading their privacy?" Ryou suggested.

"What privacy? We're in public. Besides," Honda added, "I'm considering asking him for copies."

Otogi formed a box with the thumb and index finger of each hand and used it to frame the scene. "They do make a really weird picture. Isn't it usual for the _guy_ to lift up the _girl_ to kiss her?"

"Yeah, but the guy isn't usually a head and shoulders shorter than the girl. She'd get total backache leaning down for this long."

"She must have arm muscles like iron bars."

"Yeah," Jounouchi said decisively, absently rubbing his arm. "She got them from always punching me. Ow!"

Otogi grinned. "I thought you might be missing the experience since she's indisposed."

As the pair of them took off, Otogi pursued by Jounouchi, Honda sighed and shook his head. Ryou looked between him, the two other boys, and their other friends and nibbled his lip, still unused to the strange nuances of their friendships.

To his credit, he then shrugged.

Honda smiled. "C'mon, we can see better from by that sunglasses stand."

* * *


	20. The Pharaoh Sails to Orion: Zorc

* * *

**20. ****_The Pharaoh Sails to Orion _****– Nightwish**

* * *

There are many varied and conflicting accounts of what existed at the start of all things. Each is right in its own way, but before that, in the _very _beginning, there was only the nothingness. Then came the not-nothing, which had no name. To distinguish itself it was a 'something'. Yet this something was lonely, and so from the nothingness it pulled its Other, and they called themselves the Light and the Darkness. They were the first somethings, before the universe, time, or life were born – Light and Darkness, equal but opposite and eternal because they were the first and so weren't governed by the rules of later somethings.

Each something that came after them was the most powerful of its kind simply because it was the first – the descendants of these were copies, pale imitations, never able to achieve the same great heights as their forebears. The first life, the first death, the first star, the first world – the lines diluted as time progressed, but the firsts remained the epitome that everything else strove to achieve.

Light and Darkness fought over many things, eternally in competition with each other because although they were both firsts of their kind, they were also the first equals.

The Darkness birthed many things – fear, nightmares, and the horrors that crept in them – but its favourite child was its image on the first planet to have the first life, and it named this child after itself. Thus, the darkness was born.

The darkness also birthed children of its own – the night, demons, and the tiny part of the first human that compelled it to act in ways resembling the Darkness. Thus, cruelty was born.

Light heard of cruelty and tussled with darkness, overcoming it and turning it to shadow, and then setting its own firstborn, light, to stand guard. Wherever light appeared, darkness turned to only shadow, and hissed helplessly against its natural enemy. Then Light attempted to wrestle with cruelty, but Darkness intervened and they fought inside the first human until they nearly destroyed it. In order to set a balance, Darkness allowed Light to insert its own creation as cruelty's equal opposite, just as they were equal opposites. Thus, compassion was born.

Light and Darkness agreed that balance was the key to maintaining their struggle, which they both enjoyed, without destroying everything they fought over. Yet Darkness was jealous of Light, for two of Darkness's descendants were jealousy and suspicion, and they whispered to Darkness until it believed light to be cheating in their goal, making itself more attractive to the first human and its offspring.

So the first true demon was a creature of pure evil, created in secret and then sealed away when Light discovered Darkness's plot. Light, distraught overt this betrayal by its Other, gathered its children and grandchildren, and all their descendants. They banded together and banished Darkness to the first pocket dimension, where it ruled supreme in its loneliness.

But unbeknownst to them, darkness stole the first demon while its parents was being punished, and hid the first demon away to be used when it could wreak revenge upon the family of Light and return Darkness to the world. Thus, Darkness and the first demon waited in their separate prisons, while darkness spread and fermented in the world, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

It came millennia later. Cruelty came to darkness, and brought with it greed and lust, both of whom told of a plan by humans to invoke some of the first magics. Cruelty had swelled inside the hearts of those who made this plan, and combined with these magics it saw a way for darkness to finally take its revenge.

Thus, the first demon was truly born, and such was the power in its evil heart that when it raked its claws across the sky, it opened a door to the Darkness's prison, and Darkness began to ooze back into the world.

But once again the family of Light intervened to repel them both. The first demon, unwilling to be imprisoned again, chose an unassuming vessel and hid inside it where it thought the Light couldn't find it, since Light was so preoccupied with its Other once more. However, one of Light's children saw the first demon hide and hid itself in another vessel, intending to unearth the creature before it could do any harm. But both vessels were removed from the mortal world soon after, and their hidden companions could not die with them, but became tied to their two chosen souls. Thus, the first waiting game was born.

And thousands of years later, when a lonely boy completed a puzzle and released the soul inside, and a grieving boy put on an ancient necklace, the next chapter of a story even greater than they knew was finally written.

* * *


	21. We Belong: Amane

* * *

**21. **_**We Belong**_** – Pat Benatar**

* * *

Amane sat and sobbed. She sobbed for a long time – so long, in fact, that when someone tapped her on the shoulder she tried to jump and found she hadn't the energy for more than a tired twitch.

"Don't cry, little one. It's all right."

Amane wasn't the kind of child to cross the street to avoid strangers. She was more the type to walk straight up to someone she didn't know and try to befriend them until someone – usually her mother or brother, who both despaired of keeping her safe from herself _and _the rest of the world's dangers – pulled her away and apologised to whoever she'd accosted.

"It's not," she said now, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Mummy always told her not to do that, but Mummy wasn't here. That brought fresh tears to her eyes and she sobbed afresh. "It's not all right. It's all _wrong_."

"Hush now, you'll make yourself sick."

"I feel awful."

"You will do at first, but it gets better. Does your tummy feel funny?"

"Not that kind of awful. I feel awful about being here. I'm supposed to be at home, but I … I can't go home. I don't think I can ever go home again, even though I want to."

Soft hands stroked her hair. Amane leaned into their touch, and didn't try to fight when the stranger hugged her. It was a nice hug, not too strong or too loose, and smelled like Mummy's special perfume, which she only wore on special occasions because it was so rare and expensive. She had to order it over the Internet. When it arrived in a box full of wonderful foam bits that cascaded like snow when you threw them into the air, Amane read the postmark on the box as 'New York'. Amane knew she wasn't in any danger from someone who hugged and smelled like that – warm and comforting and … motherly.

But however much she felt and smelled like Mummy, she wasn't her.

"I want my Mummy."

"She arrived here before you did. I can take you to her, if you like."

"You can?"

"Yes. Everybody's waiting for you."

Amane sniffed. "Everybody?"

"Yes."

"Even Big Brother and Daddy?"

"… No."

"Not everybody, then."

"You're very perceptive. You're also a very special little girl. You've been sick for some time."

"No I haven't! I never throw up!"

"I ... oh, yes, you're English aren't you? Um, you've been ill? Unwell?"

"You mean I've been _poorly_?"

"We'll go with that one. Yes, you've been very poorly. You were in hospital for a long time."

"I … don't remember."

"You were a special kind of asleep, called a coma. It was like a halfway point between there and here."

Amane knew what _that_ meant, though she didn't want to. The knowledge had seeped into her mind with each convulsive sob. "I'm dead, aren't I?" She buried her face in fold of soft fabric and perfume.

"Yes, sweetheart, I'm afraid you are."

"And Mummy's dead, too." A thought occurred to her and she craned her head up. "Are _you_ dead?"

"Yes."

"You don't look it."

"People rarely do on this side of the veil. It's a kind of magic – you go back to looking how you were at your best; how want to be remembered by those you left behind."

'Left behind'.Amane thought of Ryou and Daddy. "Can't you stop being dead?"

"Not really."

"But you're a grown-up. Grown-ups can do lots of things that seem magical but aren't really."

"That may well be so, but unfortunately not many grown-ups can do things that seem magical and _are_ really magic."

"And this … really is magic?"

"The most powerful kind there is."

"Oh." Amane flexed her fingers, realised she was holding tight to hair that wasn't her own and quickly released it. Hair-pullers were horrible people; nearly as bad as biters and shin-kickers in the playground. "Like wishing? Ryou said wishing on a star is a special kind of magic. There are lots of stars around here." She gestured to the stygian blackness studded with sparkling points of light all around them. "I wished for him to have a friend. Everybody thinks we're odd because Daddy often forgets to get dressed properly when he takes us to school, and sometimes he's so busy reading he puts on Mummy's dressing gown instead of his own. I wished for Ryou to have a friend, and the next ay he told me _I _was his best friend, so his wish came true. Can … I stop being dead if I wish really hard?"

The stranger's forehead had crinkled higher and higher as Amane talked, and when the reply finally came it was a strangled, "No. I'm afraid not."

"But I don't like it here. I want to go home with Mummy and Daddy and Ryou and my cat." She sniffed again. "We ran over a cat. That's why Mummy crashed the car. She wasn't trying to hit it, but I think we did anyway. Would that cat be here?"

"We could go and see, if you like."

"I'd rather go home."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. It does get easier with time"

"I … suppose I would like to try and find the cat, so I can say sorry to it. I mean, if I really, truly, _honestly_ can't go back." Amane watched the stranger's face, looking for clues that there was still some hope. Eventually she stood up and held out her hand. "You're nice, for a grown-up."

"Thank you. I try to be. It makes people feel more welcome if there's a friendly face to greet them, so a few of us have made it our business to be those friendly faces. We help people who're confused or freeze up before they can properly move on."

"Like me." Amane tipped her head to one side. "You're pretty, too. You look like the princess in my storybook."

"Why thank you."

"Her name was Rapunzel. Mine is Amane Bakura, because my Daddy's from Japan so I got a funny name even though Mummy wanted to call me Susan. What's your name?"

The stranger smiled her rose-red lips. "My name is Cynthia."

* * *


	22. I’m Gonna Fly: AnzuAtem

* * *

**22. **_**I'm Gonna Fly**_** – Sydney Forest**

* * *

Anzu was bewildered by her surroundings and the strangely distant numbness of her body, like her neck had stretched and hr head was a million miles from the rest of her. She was so disorientated in fact, that she couldn't tell where those surroundings ended and the people in them began. Wherever she looked, a head of billowing hair became a waving field of golden corn, or a stream of stars across the sky; fingers arched into tree branches that budded and bloomed into pink flowers, except that in an instant they weren't flowers but a pair of smiling lips, a ribbon tied into a bow around a white ponytail, and an embroidered heart on the front of a little girl's denim dress. Everything was fluid, and nothing stayed the same for more than a second.

"Where …?"

"Nowhere. Everywhere."

The voices were just like the visions – blending seamlessly from the crash of a sea wave to the roar of some giant wild animal, the heavy grind of machinery, the skid of tires on gravel and a blend of vocal chords she didn't recognise.

"Don't think about it too much," said one voice that made images of computers pop and waver into her mind. "You're not supposed to be here yet."

"You've come too far," said another, emerging from the wheat field that became a swathe of blonde hair studded with roses. "You have to go back. It's not your time yet."

"Not my … time?" Speaking was such a great effort that it actually hurt, an all-over ache that didn't go away but increased as she tried to take a step towards the speakers to hear them better.

Cool hands pressed down on her shoulders, gentle but still firm as an eagle's claws in the scruff of a rabbit. They held her back. Anzu twisted her head and got an impression of eyes like a night sky reflected in clear water, but everything was whirling too much for her to properly focus on them.

"Your loved ones are waiting for you," said a voice just below those eyes. "It's not time to join us yet."

"Who's us?" Anzu asked with difficulty.

"Everyone, silly," laughed a much younger but still strangely familiar voice.

"Bakura?" Anzu squinted at the beribboned ponytail. "Ryou?"

Another giggle. "Not quite. Now go back to the real Ryou."

"I don't understand. Who -?"

"Go back," the voices whispered. "You have to go back. Your body still lives. You have to return to it. You have to go back."

"I don't understand!" Anzu wailed, grasping that something had gone very, very wrong for her to be … wherever she was. Dead? No, but close. She tried to remember and had another fleeting impression, this time of headlights and a dark road – or was that just another part of the shifting scenery? Spots of light and shadow blistered her vision and melted away again into red and yellow crayon daubs. "How?" she said desperately. "How do I go back?"

And then someone stepped from that scenery like an actor coming onstage from behind a painted backdrop. Time seemed to freeze around him, making him more solid than anything else.

Anzu gasped. "Pharaoh?"

He smiled. He rarely smiled. It was a curious and beautiful thing. "Atem," he corrected, or at least reminded her. When he placed a hand on her shoulder the other hands vanished, and he was the most real thing in the world to Anzu. She could feel the warmth of his palm, smell spices and sweat, and a burnt ozone scent that followed him around and could only be magic.

"Oh god, I've missed you." The words slipped out before she could stop them. They were very true, although the depth of their meaning had never been quite as clear as it was now. "Atem, I -"

"You have to go back, Anzu. Our friends are waiting for you."

Chastened and slightly disappointed, she whispered, "But I don't know how."

"Yes, you do." He smiled again and cupped her cheek with his other hand. Her mind whirled. "Much as I would enjoy your company on this side of the veil, it's not yet your time. You have a life to lead and you need to get back to it. And the people who love you."

The regret in his tone made Anzu think of her friends, their faces flashing through her like a bolt of lightning. She shuddered, gripping the bolt between her hands as it became a physical thing. Her fingers crackled. She heard voices and Atem's distinctive scent was replaced by the nose-wrinkling smell of antiseptic and air freshener. The longer she held on, the stronger these things were – and the fainter Atem became.

She met his eyes. For a second she wanted to let go and grab him instead, so she could stay here even though it wasn't her time and she didn't actually want to die.

He shook his head, as though reading her thoughts. And perhaps he was. "Someday we'll all be reunited, but not yet."

"Atem, I -"

And then she was fallingflyingsoaringlanding.

Anzu opened her eyes to a welter of bleeping and movement around her.

"You know," Jounouchi said when the nurses had finally cleared out and her friends and family were allowed to talk to her alone, "if you'd wanted us to visit you in New York, you could've just asked. You didn't need to step out in front of the freaking _bus_ to get us over here."

"That was really scary, Anzu," Yuugi murmured, right next to her bed where he'd been the whole time.

But Anzu shook her head and smiled softly. "Actually," she whispered, "that made a lot of scary things a lot less scary."

* * *


	23. This Disaster: MalikAnzu

* * *

**23. **_**This Disaster**_** – New Found Glory**

* * *

Malik didn't understand _why_.

That was the long and short of it – he just didn't understand why, out of all those he'd ever possessed using the Millennium Rod, this one girl kept coming back into his thoughts. He'd never regretted the Ghouls, or that cretin Katsuya Jounouchi. He'd never regretted any of the idiots whose personal desires had allowed them to be caught in his web, and he didn't _regret_ what he'd done to her, either.

But he did think about it a lot.

And her. He thought about her a lot, too.

She chased him through his dreams, not pursuing him but always there, always _right_ _there_ wherever he turned. He saw her face in various stages; first blank as he'd made her, then venomous in her hatred for him, then full of anger and despair when she thought her friends had drowned. He saw the look of love that briefly passed over her features as she stroked Mutou's sodden hair, and the utter confusion that often knitted her brows when she, along with everyone else, had no idea what was going on. She was just another pawn in his plans, to be manipulated back and forth, and yet …

And yet … what?

She was weak, he told himself. Her obsession with the welfare of others made her feeble, especially in the face of strength like his. She spent no time bolstering her own defences, even after she'd been caught and subjected to his powers. She wasn't worth considering. Not like Isis. Isis was strong, a true threat, but his own sister filled his thoughts less than Anzu Mazaki.

Malik watched her from the corner of his eye, cheering for the Pharaoh with no idea that the real enemy was less than three feet away. Anzu Mazaki was clueless – he should have despised her for it, and for her allegiance with his father's murderer.

And yet …

He remembered touching her hair when he was reprogramming her, ready for her role on the docks. It was silkier than Isis's, the only other girl whose hair he'd touched. He remembered being small and his sister picking him up. He'd grabbed handfuls of her hair and yanked hard to make her put him down again. Isis's hair was thick and slightly coarse, but Anzu Mazaki's billowed in the slightest breeze like it was made of torn gossamer wings. It had caught the light as he let it slide through his fingers, hypnotising him until Rishid's cough snapped him out of it.

Malik didn't know why he'd touched her hair. He didn't know why his skin prickled at the glimpse of smooth belly when she raised her arms to cheer for the Pharaoh. He didn't know why her shout for Malik's enemy to triumph made his head ring with something other than anger. He didn't know why she continued to hypnotise him, or why something inside him felt sick at what would've happened to her if the crate really had fallen. She was slated to die because of her connection with the Nameless Pharaoh. Nothing would change that. Nothing _could_ change that.

And that part Malik did regret.

He just didn't understand _why_.

* * *


	24. Faded: AnzuYuugiYami

* * *

**24. **_**Faded**_** – The Veronicas**

* * *

Sometimes Yuugi caught Anzu not looking at him, but through him, searching for someone who wasn't there anymore – the someone he couldn't be for her, and never really was in the first place. She'd smile and wave her hands, denying it because she knew it was cruel, but she couldn't disguise that look and Yuugi had become horribly adept at reading her eyes.

He tried to be more like Yami – no, Atem, or maybe a blend of the two versions of his Other Me. he stood taller, deepened his voice, gave thumbs-up inside of hugs and smirked instead of smiled. His friends were confused, which made him shake off the behaviour in embarrassment. Of course he wasn't Yami. Of course.

Still, when he caught Anzu's eyes sliding to a point just above his head, he always ended up doing it again.

"Are you feeling okay, Yuugi?"

"Fine, fine, just … uh … hey, did you do last night's Physics homework? I got completely stuck on question seven."

He felt like he had a line of dominos instead of veins and arteries, and eventually all of them would be knocked over, revealing a picture of someone else inside him. But somehow, though they rocked and wobbled, the dominoes stayed upright and he was still just him: Yuugi Mutou; gamer; short-guy; friend.

"Do you _really_ miss him?" he asked Anzu one day on the way to school.

She blinked in surprise. "Of course I do. Don't you?"

"Yeah," he said sadly, staring at the sidewalk. He didn't notice that she'd stopped until three paving slabs later. "Anzu?"

"Do you …" she started, twisting her fingers together in front of her. "Um … do you think about him a lot?"

"Sure I do. He was in my head and soul. It was like losing a part of myself."

"This must be really hard for you," she said, a note of ultimate sadness in her voice that Yuugi couldn't even begin to understand. "Not having such a big part of your heart around anymore."

"I guess you could put it that way." He laughed, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "It's kind of like having a leg removed and then trying to play DDR."

But instead of laughing, Anzu just smiled sadly and started walking again, going at a much faster pace than before. Yuugi had to hurry to keep up. It was like she was trying to get away from him, though she did keep looking over her shoulder to make sure he was still there.

That day after school Yuugi went to the mall and bought some more chains and belts from the store Yami favoured most. He wore them when Anzu came over to help him with his Physics homework. She blinked, eyes on his waist, so he knew she'd seen them, but she went past him into the kitchen and never said a word about his efforts to give her what he thought she wanted.

* * *


	25. All We Know: Anzu, Yami

* * *

**25. **_**All We Know**_** – Paramore**

* * *

"Pharaoh, please, be careful." Anzu alternated between clinging to the rock face like a limpet and hopping awkwardly along, trying to keep up with him. People had often commented on how graceful she was, which she put down to years of ballet training, but right now she felt like a carthorse galumphing along in the wake of someone who wasn't even checking to see whether she was okay.

The figure in front of her looked so much like Yuugi, and any day but today she might have called him that. But this time she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that this _wasn't_ Yuugi. This was the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, the long-dead Nameless Pharaoh that Malik had gone to such lengths to uncover and destroy, only to later befriend. This was _her_ friend, in a roundabout, very convoluted way.

The Pharaoh wasn't acting too friendly right now. Still, determinedly making his way along a narrow mountain trail was better than trying to kill unconscious boys or sitting dead-eyed on a train. This was progress, right?

Right?

_Yuugi…_ Despair welled inside Anzu so sharply that it cut a fresh chunk out of her heart and dissolved it in her stomach acid. All her insides roiled at the thought of what had become of Yuugi, and what might be happening to him right now. His soul was gone – stolen away by a psychopath – and if even the Pharaoh couldn't stop it then what were the rest of them supposed to do? She'd always argued that they were more than just cheerleaders, but right now she felt more helpless than she ever had before in her entire life.

Then she shook her head. She couldn't think like that. She needed to be strong now, for Yuugi _and _the Pharaoh. She could tell he was nearing his breaking point, if he hadn't already passed it. His behaviour with Haga had frightened her. If she hadn't been there, if they hadn't crashed, if it'd been just the two of them with nobody to pull the Pharaoh back … the consequences didn't bear thinking about.

_He needs me, even if he doesn't know it. He needs me to keep him from doing something stupid that could get himself or someone else killed._

Plus, for her own sake, getting distracted right now was a bad idea. One wrong move and she could slip and fall, and there was nothing between her and a very messy end on the rocks below but a hundred feet of empty air. If she died, who would save Yuugi?

Well, everybody was trying to save him, actually, so someone would step into the breach. Jounouchi and Honda, maybe, or Otogi and Rebecca. Still, given the choice, Anzu would really rather not go splat.

Nevertheless, she hurried to keep up with the Pharaoh. He was going faster and much more recklessly than her, as though he didn't care whether or not he fell. Anzu frowned. That was still Yuugi's body, and she refused to believe he wasn't coming back for it. That was the only thought keeping her from completely breaking down.

"Pharaoh, be _careful_," she urged again, finding a fresh handhold for herself.

He didn't even look back, his shoulders high and tense. He was some way ahead of her now, so it was possible he couldn't even hear her. He was too focussed on getting to … wherever they were going. She didn't know and he didn't care as long as it eventually led to Yuugi, or at least a means of avenging him. Everything else had taken a backseat to that desire. He wasn't the composed, righteous, slightly melodramatic personality she'd come to know, but a stew pot of regret and loathing, who burned with such conflicting impulses that Anzu half expected him to start throwing off sparks. If he wasn't careful he was going to hurt himself. In his misguided penance _he_ might not care about himself anymore, but Anzu still did.

"Pharaoh, this trail is really dangerous. You have to be more -" Her words was cut off by a squeak, as her left handhold suddenly crumbled while her right hand was searching for a new one, and her balance shifted. Anzu's arms windmilled frantically, but it was no use. She felt her heels beginning to skid. "_Pharaoh_!"

Finally he looked back, scowling. However, when he saw what was happening his expression quickly morphed into alarm. He swivelled to come back to her, but it was too late. He was too far away and the trail was too narrow for him to turn in time.

Anzu toppled over the edge.

It wasn't until she was halfway down that her voice came back.

"_YUUGI_!"

* * *


	26. Savin' Me: Main cast

* * *

**26. **_**Savin' Me**_** – Nickelback**

* * *

"So what's it to be, Yuugi?" Kaiba's coattails blew in the stiff breeze that whistled through the battlements of Pegasus's castle. "Will you murder me to achieve your goals?"

Ryou's head throbbed. He felt sick. This was … rather beyond anything he'd ever had to deal with. What was Kaiba _thinking_, putting himself in such danger? And worse, making Yuugi choose between this terrible act and his grandfather's soul? That was just despicable.

_He's thinking about his brother_, a part of Ryou whispered.

Kaiba was doing what any true big brother would do, albeit with a lethal, selfish edge – he was trying to protect his little brother. Ryou could understand that. After all, if it'd been him and someone had taken Amane's soul, he'd fight against his own gentle nature to get it back. How many nights after she died did he lay awake trying to make a deal with God to give back his little sister and his mother, even though he knew it was useless? Love made you do reckless, stupid, and useless things like offer your own life in exchange.

Still … Yuugi had done so much for Ryou already. Kaiba's goals may have been noble, be he couldn't be allowed to torture someone as _good_ as Yuugi Mutou.

Ryou edged along the battlements while Kaiba went into his diatribe, unnoticed because everyone was too dismayed at Kaiba to notice what he was up to. After years of perfecting the skill, Ryou was good at blending into the background

So when Kaiba pointed melodramatically at Yuugi, exacting him to make his choice, he wasn't expecting another pair of hands to reach out of nowhere and yank him from his perch.

Kaiba tumbled forward. Ryou's grip wasn't good, and apparently, besides being the youngest CEO in Japan, Kaiba has also taken lesson in marital arts or something. He kicked out and all the breath whooshed from Ryou's stomach, his ribs saved only by the awkwardness of the angle.

"Quick!" he wheezed. "Help me!"

Broken from their horror by this fresh surprise, Anzu, Honda and Jounouchi ran over. Between them they were able to subdue Kaiba. Ryou found himself sitting astride the taller boy's back, Honda and Jounouchi pinning his arms and Anzu sitting on the backs of Kaiba's knees to prevent him kicking anyone again.

Yuugi just looked stupefied at this unforeseen turn of events, his face flickering oddly between sharp and soft features.

Jounouchi grunted as Kaiba spat insults and threats, twisting his arms to free them. "A thank you might be nice, Yuugi. Not that I didn't enjoy beating on Seto Kaiba, but I'm gonna have a real shiner in the morning."

* * *


	27. Drowning Man: Jounouchi, Shizuka

* * *

**27. **_**Drowning Man**_** – Greenwheel**

* * *

Shizuka didn't even leave time to finish her thought, she got as far as _Katsuya's in the water- _and then she was too. It was colder than she expected, and the moment she hit it drove all the air from her lungs, so instead of a perfect dives followed by a dramatic rescue it was a perfect dive followed by spluttering, followed by a bit of gasping, _then _ducking under the water to rescue her heroic brother.

_Big Brother, where are you?_

The ocean was far murkier than a swimming pool, but Shizuka was used to seeing the world through a haze of encroaching darkness. Before her operation she'd been glad for anything big enough to appear sharp to her eyes – especially labels on the doors of public bathrooms. More than once she'd gone into the wrong one when 'women' and 'men' exchanged their signs for 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' and she just headed into the one with the longest label as usual. Picking out the smear of a white and blue tee-shirt wasn't her biggest problem. Her biggest problem wasn't even the stinging agony of saltwater on eyes still sensitive from delicate laser surgery.

No, her biggest problem was swimming faster than a sinking anchor.

_Big Brother, I'm coming! I'm coming to save you._

In her mind she was five years old again, playing on the beach and pretending to be Wonder Woman. Katsuya had tied the top button of his coat and pretended to be Superman, until he realised neither of them had anyone to rescue, so he took it off and became a Helpless Civilian instead. He'd found a crab in a rock pool and Shizuka had 'rescued' him from the nefarious Crustacean Monster, and they'd collapsed in helpless giggles when she missed her footing and they both ended up in the water.

"Some superhero," Katsuya had laughed, scrubbing his hand through her hair because he was too big for girly things like hugs anymore. "But I still love ya."

_I'm coming, Big Brother!_

Katsuya was very still. Shizuka panicked. It made her fingers fumbly as she inserted the key, but she still got it in and was about to turn it when Katsuya seemed to come awake suddenly and shoved her, pointing back to the surface. It was clear he wanted her to go back before she ran out of air, but Shizuka was more concerned that his shove had made her drop the key. It spiralled away into the murky water, and her panic grew so large that it burned her lungs.

No, that was the lack of oxygen. Her head felt funny and the back of her throat ached.

_No! No, no, no, no, no…_

Frantically she scanned around her, but the key was gone. Katsuya had been down here a lot longer than her. That shove had taken the last of his strength. His arms trailed limply above him, like he was a victim in a hold-up, as the heavy anchor dragged him down and down.

Shizuka clamped her arms around him, refusing to let go. He was her Big Brother. He'd risked everything to save his best friend. That kind of heroism couldn't end like this. She tried to swim upwards, pulling him with her, but he was too heavy. Her chest was on fire, there was an iron band around her skull, but still she couldn't bring herself to unclamp her arms.

_I can't let go,_ she thought as she passed the point where the only way she could get back to the surface was if she floated very, very slowly. Still, she couldn't leave him.

Remorselessly, the anchor dragged both brother and sister down into the dark.

* * *


	28. Guilty: Seto

**A/N****:** This one can be seen as a precursor to another fic I wrote some time ago, _Unchained Elegy_ (www. fanfiction. net/s/4075071/1/Unchained (underscore) Elegy), so anybody who has read that will be able to tell where this is going from the get-go. Battle City has such scope for tragedy.

* * *

**28. **_**Guilty**_** – The Rasmus**

* * *

Seto Kaiba was not in the habit of feeling guilty about anything. He'd done several things that would probably wrack other people with guilt, but he viewed them clinically. Each step he took was towards an ultimate goal, and he calculated his movements with such meticulousness that there was no room left for petty sentiment. Few things mattered to him, certainly nothing more than his brother, and those few were the _only _things that could tug more than vaguely disgusted apathy from him. He didn't doubt himself, he didn't second-guess himself, and he _certainly_ never felt guilty about doing what was necessary. Sometimes he got a vague twinge of something when Mokuba asked him to spend more time with him outside work and Duel Monsters and he couldn't. The look on his little brother's face, however fleeting, plucked at the strings of something inside Seto, but just like Mokuba's expression it was fleeting.

The first thing unrelated to Mokuba that made Seto Kaiba feel guilty wasn't something he'd done, but something he'd failed to do.

Using playing cards as projectile weapons was a ridiculous idea. Seto knew that. It was why he used them. Nobody expected Duel Monsters cards to cause as much damage as they did if thrown at the right angle, just as nobody expected a teenager to be able to run a company, or a CEO to be capable of more than sitting at a desk signing cheques. Seto was good at challenging the world's expectations.

His aim was perfect. Everything he did was perfect – meticulously calculated, painstakingly exact and mind-numbingly thorough. He wasn't quite a machine, but some days he stared at the banks of computers in Kaiba Corp's labs and wondered whether he _really _needed them all. There was as much room for error in him as there was for petty sentiment.

Tiny pebbles can bring down giants. Seto should have known he wasn't the only thing that could challenge expectations. A half-centimetre rocked the foundations of all his arrogant self-confidence.

It also ended Anzu Mazaki's life.

Seto Kaiba was not in the habit of feeling guilty about anything. However, he was also not in the habit of watching his most hated rival scream like he'd been stabbed, or watching a possessed person be forcibly ripped from his possession like Mutou's sidekick, Jounouchi, at the sound of a metal crate falling from a great height. Seto Kaiba had ultimate goals and took whatever steps were necessary to achive them. And if people got in his way … well that was their own fault, and they bore the consequences of that.

But when Mokuba told him through tears that Anzu Mazaki had saved his life by allowing him to escape Malik, and done it at the cost of her own freedom, Seto Kaiba risked his own life to save Yuugi Mutou and Katsuya Jounouchi from Malik's sick game. Then he stood over his sobbing rival, dripping wet, and instead of triumph he felt guilt pierce him, and genuine remorse trickle from the wound. He'd wanted Mutou broken and on his knees before him, but not like this.

Seto set his jaw. His teeth made an unpleasant grinding noise. "This won't go unpunished, Mutou."

"You don't understand … you don't … that's not … oh, _Anzu!_"

Seto looked away, his eyes landing on Mokuba's streaked face and becoming hard as ice chips. He was already meticulously planning his next move, and like so many before it, this one wouldn't be pleasant. "I won't let this go unpunished."

* * *

**A/N****: **Hello. My name is Scribbler, and I have a problem with killing off a character I purport to actually love to bits. This is the third time I've killed Anzu in this collection (fourth if you count Ficlet 22, although that was more a near-death-experience), and I'll say now that I'm not sure why or how it keeps happening. Dang short time-span for writing leaves no room for moral dilemmas of the lives of fictional characters!


	29. Invisible: VivianValon

* * *

**29. **_**Invisible **_**– Taylor Swift**

* * *

The first time Vivian met him, she didn't actually _meet_ him. Nobody introduced them, and it wasn't what you'd call an auspicious beginning.

In actual fact, the first she knew of him was when she heard the crack of a hand across a cheek. She looked up to see Mai in the latter stages of slapping a guy so hard she nearly turned his head so he had to walk backwards to see forwards. He stood his ground though, which was impressive enough that Vivian invaded her duelling partner's personal space and came over to investigate – and possibly defend if the need arose. She wasn't cold-hearted, after all, and if her girl needed her, then Vivian was all claws and teeth.

Not in this instance, though.

"Hey there, cutie," she said, leaning on Mai's shoulder. It was how she greeted all guys, whether she knew them or not – 'cutie', 'darling', 'sweetheart'. Life was nicer when you didn't burn your bridges before you'd had a chance to scope out the talent. "Something wrong, Mai?"

When he turned his face back towards them, however, Vivian's usual forthrightness deserted her and she was left staring. Blue eyes, an unruly tangle of brown hair, biceps like watermelons and clearly defined abs through his shirt – he was a little on the short side, making up his missing inches in sheer hair volume, but she could live with that if she exchanged high heels for that chiselled jaw and those knuckleduster cheekbones. An edge of ruggedness clung to him, as if the shirt and jeans combo he had on wasn't what he was comfortable wearing.

"I told you once before that I didn't want to see you," Mai said, a note in her voice that Vivian had never heard before.

Vivian was used to Mai alternating between unspoken regret and aggressive determination, as though she couldn't decide whether she craved forgiveness for past sins, or to beat up the ones demanding she repent. Mai had been a tangle of conflicts and internal struggles since she and Vivian hooked up to lay waste to the Asian Doubles circuit, and Vivian had never pried further than Mai was comfortable revealing on her own. After all, there were a couple of skeletons in Vivian's own closet she'd rather didn't come off the hangars, so who was she to judge if Mai wasn't keen on doing the girly sharing thing.

But this guy … Vivian sensed there was a story there, and a doozy if she was any judge of the look in his eyes and the tense line of her partner's shoulders. Mai practically effervesced with fury and – Vivian checked. Yup, there was that guilt again.

"I saw you in the newspaper," the guy said, revealing a curious accent Vivian couldn't place. To her ears it sounded hella sexy though – me_ow_! "It's been a year, Mai."

"So?"

"I needed to see you."

"So cut my picture from that newspaper. Leave me alone. I'm not … I'm not ready to …" Mai inhaled her words and choked on them like liquid that'd gone down the wrong tube. She turned away, breaking from Vivian's casual touch like she hadn't even noticed she was there.

"Wow," Vivian said, watching her leave. "She hasn't reacted that badly to anything for a while. Are you her ex or something, sweetheart?"

"Or something," he murmured, also watching Mai go but making no move to follow her. He sighed, turning his attention to Vivian and offering a smile that made the back of her neck prickle. "I read about you, too. You're Vivian Wong."

"Guilty as charged. And you are?" _Aside from insanely hot and probably taken, psychotic, or besotted with someone else so badly you won't even look twice in my direction, because that's just the way my luck runs with men. _

"Just Valon."

"Well, 'Just Valon', since you came all the way out here from wherever, you can treat me to dinner and tell me aaaaall about it."

He blinked at her, startled. "That was subtle."

"Subtlety is for weaklings and time-wasters, cutie." Her own smile was just as dazzling as his, though it showed a little more of her canines. "And I'm neither."

* * *


	30. Fidelity: IsisSeto

* * *

**30. **_**Fidelity **_**– Regina Spektor**

* * *

Isis had never met anyone outside her own family who could sway her beliefs the way Seto Kaiba did. Malik's fall into darkness, her father's cruelty and her brothers' twisted devotion to him and each other – these things shocked and dismayed her, turned her briefly into a wailing ball of grief for a man who never actually loved her, and dried up all her tears in her resolve to save what remained of her family. She was shaken by what occurred, but the Ishtar family were tomb keepers and so already removed from what was normal for other people.

Seto Kaiba was not a tomb keeper. He didn't even believe in the legend of the Nameless Pharaoh when faced with the proof of his stone tablet, and yet he managed to change _everything_ for Isis. Through him, she learned that the future truly isn't preordained, and that it is within people to break free from destiny and write their own stories. For too long she'd been bound by thoughts of fate, entrapped by the tomb keeper way of thinking, so that she actually believed there was one ultimate destiny for everyone.

Seto Kaiba rejected his destiny, and when he did he shattered Isis's expectations of the world – and rebuilt them in the same instant.

_Malik really can be saved._

_He can be brought home._

_He can be the little brother I remember again, not the monster he's become. _

_I don't have to be alone for the rest of my life._

She wasn't technically alone. She had her job and her colleagues, who respected and admired her, but behind closed doors she felt more isolated than she had when locked underground as a child. She'd taught herself to be self-contained, so as not to give away the fate of her youngest brother and the threat he posed. Isis kept her worries inside, icing over her heart to lock them in – out of shame? Regret? Embarrassment that _she_ couldn't prevent his slide into evil? – and isolating herself in the process. The phrase 'alone in a crowd' seemed coined for her personal use.

That is, until Seto Kaiba defeated her in a duel, and for the first time in years Isis felt a connection with someone. He turned away from her, disparaged her, threw her words back in her face, but for a second he'd felt it too. She'd seen it in his eyes – cold, blue and hard like hers when she looked in the mirror each morning. He knew he'd keep rejecting the fates laid out for him until he found the one he wanted. Raised in the modern world, where the supernatural was neglected ad left to rot, untapped, even in the gifted, Seto Kaiba had still managed to do what generations of Ishtars could not.

He had made a choice when there was none to be made, and he had chosen another path.

Could Isis do the same?

_I don't __**have**__ to be alone._ She watched him leave, coattails flying. _And neither do you, Seto Kaiba._

It was what she said to him months later at a formal Kaiba Corp charity function, when she slid up beside him and he refused to acknowledge that she'd managed to catch him by surprise.

"Everybody's alone in the end, Ishtar," he snapped, and then noticed the reporters swarming around. "_Miss_ Ishtar."

"Is that their fate, in your opinion?" she asked slyly.

He narrowed his eyes at her, low voice dripping with sarcasm. "Cute. And for your information, _I'm_ not alone. I have Mokuba."

She stared at him, and he stared back just as hard, each waiting for the other to look away first.

"I have Malik," she said softly. "And Rishid. But in a way, I am still alone. And in a way, so are you."

He curled his lip, but she saw the brief spark in his eyes at her words – doused before it had time to catch, but still there for an instant. Only a creature with total free will could do what he'd done when he defied fate. He may not have liked to acknowledge all parts of it, but he was still human under his veneer of perfection.

"Drivel," he muttered, once more leaving her to watch his departing coattails, but Isis just smiled.

He had looked away first.

She followed him like a moth determined to burn itself up in the blue flicker at the very heart of a flame.

* * *


	31. You Picked Me: HondaShizuka

**A/N: **I'm thinking about putting together a fanmix 'album' of all the songs used in this collection. I'd be really grateful to anyone who could help me out with some cover art. Not necessarily fanart, manips and edited screencaps would be fine, but I'd like to have something more than a plain block of text from Word, which is what it'd end up being if I end up doing it. So this is a call to anyone reading - help, please?

* * *

**31. **_**You Picked Me **_**– A Fine Frenzy**

* * *

"How long do you think he'll yell?"

"I'm not sure. A couple of days. Maybe a week. What do you think?"

"Without us there to answer back? I think that's an optimistic estimate. How are you doing back there, anyhow? Comfy?"

"Not really."

"Would you like me to pull over?"

"No."

"If you're uncomfortable -"

"I never said I was uncomfortable. I said I wasn't comfy. There's a difference."

"There is?"

"Of course. Comfy is snuggling down in a sofa with a warm mug of cocoa and a cat in your lap. Comfortable is riding away into the sunset on the back of a motorcycle like a movie heroine. I still can't believe I did this."

"Neither can I. Listen, Shizuka, there's still time. I can turn this around and we can be back at yours and Jounouchi's apartment in less than five minutes."

"You do that and I may do something that will completely ruin my reputation as a nice girl."

"But if you have any doubts, I don't want you to -"

"Honda."

"Yes?"

"Please … just drive."

"Are you sure?"

"Will you stop asking that? I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah. I didn't think you'd come."

"You must not have much faith in me."

"It's not that, it's just … we're neither of us in high school anymore. Love notes and secret meetings … we're not supposed to still do crazy stuff like this. And we're _definitely _not supposed to just ride into the sunset like you don't have to be at university in the morning and I don't have to go to work."

"Who says? Who says something's crazy if it makes you happy? Particularly if you've waited a long time and tried other options before realising what you actually wanted to make you happy. Jounouchi will understand. You mean a lot to him. He won't throw that all away just because you and I are together, _especially _since you waited for me for so long."

"And since we left him ranting on the pavement like a madman."

"He has a key to get back in."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant. But I think, as far as Jounouchi's concerned, nobody was ever going to be good enough for his baby sister. So now he's learning that I'm not a baby anymore. Besides, I could do a lot worse than you."

"You could do a lot better, too."

"I may not be Anzu, but I'm not above giving you a smack on the head if you keep talking like that."

"Sure, as long as those doctor class thingummyjiggers taught you how to heal someone from a fiery motorcycle crash when you're involved in it as well. I just … this is really … damn, I had a speech all planned out for if you answered my letter and met me today, but -"

"Honda?"

"Yes?"

"Just drive. We'll deal with the rest later. For now, I just want to imagine I'm a movie heroine who doesn't have to worry about anything except the end credits."

* * *


	32. Our Lives: Amelda, Raphael

* * *

**32. **_**Our Lives**_** – The Calling**

* * *

Raphael stood in the fading light of the sun. He cut an imposing figure that made even Amelda pause. The strong lines of his comrade's profile were like something out of an old oil painting. He half expected to see rifle hooked in the crook of his arm and a faithful hunting dog at his feet. No matter what he did, what he wore, or where he was, Raphael always betrayed his heritage by looking like an aristocrat and making everyone around him feel like peons.

"So what now?" Amelda asked, approaching anyway. He may not have the looks of a traditional male hero, but he wasn't a coward either.

Raphael shrugged. There was a lot in the gesture.

Amelda joined him in watching the sunset. Ocean spread out in all directions, a pathway to the rest of the world – and this time they had no bitter mission of hate motivating them to explore it. They were their own masters, their demons and regrets finally put to rest.

Well, almost. They'd never forget those they'd lost, but they weren't consumed by them anymore, which counted for something. Amelda's heart felt lighter than in had in years, though it also ached with that last ghostly touch of his brother.

"I guess Valon wasn't such an idiot after all."

Raphael glanced sideways at him. "How so?"

"He bought a house. He's got somewhere to go now."

Raphael snorted. "Where will _you_ go? Back to your country?"

Amelda shook his head.

"No," Raphael said softly. "Me neither."

Neither of them had countries anymore, just places they'd started out, and places they didn't want to finish up. Dartz had gathered them together from all the corners of the globe for a single purpose. It was what had united their unfavourably disparate characters. Still, even without him to keep them together, parting seemed … wrong. Amelda didn't know what to do with himself anymore, and though the other man gave no sign of it, he was certain Raphael felt the same.

"I have a full tank of gas," Amelda suggested.

"Me too." Raphael finally turned from the brilliant wash of colour. "I guess that's good enough for now."

Side by side, they walked away from their pasts and into their future.

* * *


	33. This Night: KisaraSeto

* * *

**33. **_**This Night**_** – Black Lab**

* * *

The soles of Kisara's feet were hardened after years of walking over shingle and shale-covered beaches. Likewise, her hands were slender and pale but calloused, and could wrench a fish from the water or de-feather a bird as easily as they could swing at her sides as she walked.

And she walked a lot.

She yearned for the ocean, but not the one that lapped at the bottom of the slave-ship that brought her to this dry land. She longed for the endless blue, the sheen of vividness that stretched from horizon to horizon. She wanted the lagoons of her childhood, where she and her brothers would play during the hottest part of the day, and the rock pools where crabs could be found. She wanted the steady shush of waves that rocked her to sleep at night, and the cool salty breeze that greeted her cheeks each morning.

Egypt was a huge country, and the parts of it she'd seen were like ancient skeletons – dry and hard and laughing at her with their skull-teeth dunes. Her strange colouring made people distrust her, though a few took pity on the skinny little thing who wandered with nomads when they tolerated her.

"I'm going home," she told herself, time and again. "I'm going to find the ocean, and a ship, and I'm going home."

Her brothers hadn't been captured by the slavers. Only she had been foolish enough to be caught. She had scars where they'd attached collars and cuffs, then tied her by her neck to other slaves in front and behind. The slavers didn't know about the sharpness of shells, though. They didn't know how a single slice with the one on her necklace, made every night throughout the long voyage and even longer trek, had whittled away the ropes until, one night when the moon was full, she escaped their encampment and their plans for her.

But she couldn't escape Egypt.

"Please, I don't want to die here, so far from home," she wept when she could go no further. Hungry, thirsty and exhausted, it was simple for another batch of slavers to pick her up, and she didn't even have the energy to fight them. "I don't want this unfriendly land to be my grave."

She never escaped Egypt, but that night, when a young boy crept to her cage, freed her and gave her a horse to travel on, she learned that Egyptians weren't all so hostile to a stranded foreigner like herself.

_He had eyes like the sea_, she thought as she bent over the horse's neck, turning his name over and over like the shiniest of beach pebbles: Seto, Seto, Seto. _Blue like the sea. Like __**my**__ sea. _She added his name to her mantra and drew strength from the memory of his kindness and blue eyes.

And the day she died she looked into his eyes once more, and couldn't remember whether the sea she'd been searching for was forever on the horizon, or locked in his blue eyes.

* * *


	34. Transatlanticism: Main cast

**A/N: **This one is directly linked to Ficlet 22, _I'm Gonna Fly_.

* * *

**34. **_**Transatlanticism**_** – Death Cab for Cutie**

* * *

_C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon…_

"Can't this thing fly any faster?"

"You could always sprout wings if you'd prefer, mutt. Or just flap your arms. Or, even better, I'll give you a balloon and you just talk into it. All that hot air should get you across the ocean in no time -"

"Guys," Honda broke in. He was strapped into his seat, so he couldn't get up and forcibly prise them apart, but it was clear that if they hadn't been thousands of feet in the air inside a giant tin can, he _so_ would've. "Cut it out. You're not helping." His eyes ticked meaningfully at Yuugi, and both Jounouchi and Otogi feel silent.

Yuugi knew they were staring at him, but he was busy crushing the life out of his armrests. His safety belt felt too tight, or maybe he was just breathing faster than normal. He'd felt on the verse of a panic attack for hours, and it showed no signs of alleviating anytime soon. He suspected it wouldn't until they landed, and then not even until they got to the hospital and someone gave them good news.

Someone put their hand over his. The touch was light and soft, and for a moment Yuugi actually believed it was Anzu's. It was the sort of gesture she'd make. She was always touching him – ruffling his hair, wiping dirt from his cheek, squeezing his shoulder to reassure him of things. A thousand tiny gestures with a million complicated meanings behind them, and one big simple meaning that kept rising above them all: _I'm here for you._

Except she wasn't, and that was the whole problem.

"A-are you all right?" Ryou asked, his touch as hesitant as his tone.

Yuugi unclenched his eyes. "Sure. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I'm _fine_." Even the uninitiated would've understood he meant 'leave me alone'.

Ryou drew back, stung. Yuugi never snapped at anyone. Ever. It was like being bitten by a rabid sabre-toothed hamster. Yuugi knew he should say sorry, but he was too pent up. He sank back in his seat, willing Otogi's private jet to turn into Concorde so they could break the sound barrier or something. _Anything_ to arrive faster – preferably sometime before they left. He wasn't sleepy but he closed his eyes, blocking out everything except the mantra he'd been repeating since he came home from the grocery store and Grandpa opened the door with a distraught expression.

_Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. _

"Hey, uh, Yuugi?"

Yuugi's fingers dug into his armrests again. "What is it, Jounouchi?"

"She'll be fine. I'm sure of it."

_I wish I was._

"Yeah, man," Honda chipped in. "Anzu's tough. She'll be all right. In fact, she'll probably be mad at us for rushing to see her when she hasn't washed her hair or something."

"Yeah, and then she'll throw hospital pillows at us."

"And kidney dishes."

"And those awful trays full of awful hospital food."

They were trying. Yuugi appreciated the attempt, especially since he knew they had to be worried as well, but somehow none of it got through the layer of anxiety coating his skin like titanium armour plating. He heard Otogi mutter, and Honda reply tersely, but he was still too wrapped up in making sure he didn't go mad before they even touched down.

_Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay …_

* * *


	35. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme

**A/N****:** Set during Buffy's third season.

* * *

**35. **_**Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme**_** – Nerf Herder**

* * *

"But I can't be a … a _soul box_."

"Actually, it's Vessel, not box. Just to be persnickety." The blonde girl shrugged apologetically. "And you can."

"And you are," added the guy beside her, also apologetically. Really, they were being awfully polite about arriving unannounced to ruin her life.

"B-But … leave Domino?"

"It's the only way we can keep you safe until this whole thing blows over. Otherwise it's demons on your doorstep, and they won't just want candy."

"They'll want your heart." The guy flinched, even though the blonde girl had only raised her hand, not even bothering to make it into a fist, and swept it through her hair like that was what she'd always meant to do. "Sometimes I shouldn't speak, for words emerge that are of the Not Helpful persuasion."

"Yup." The girl kept her focus. She was like a terrier shaking a rabbit, only cuter and American. "We have to get you out of here, and it has to be now."

"But my parents, my friends, I have to tell them -"

"Nothing." On this the girl was firm. "If you do, you'll only put them in danger. We have a safe place you can stay until we can figure out how to get that ancient witch's soul out of you and into the afterlife where it belongs. Then you can come back, all hunky-dory, no-problems-here-officer."

"Huh?"

"Man, Giles said this translation spell would take care of any language barriers."

"I think she understood the words just fine, Buffy. This might just be more of a culture thing."

The girl sighed. "The world should so be mono-cultural, or something. It'd make my life so much easier."

"So would not having to go to school tomorrow, but that's not gonna happen either, so if you could hurry it up before that big winged tin can with our names on it leaves without us … shuttingupnow."

The girl turned back to her, face grim. "Listen, basically it goes like this: if you value the lives of your loved ones, you'll come with us now so we can make you less dangerous. It's not a permanent thing but it _is _an important one."

"I … I can't …"

The girl's face and tone softened. "I know this is scary, but trust me. I know what I'm talking about." She reached out, open-palmed, offering her hand like a friend. "You have to come with us, Miho."

* * *


	36. That's What Love's About: Full cast

* * *

**36. **_**That's What Love's About**_** – Stacie Orrico**

* * *

It was in the way Mokuba knew when to babble about anything and everything, reminding Seto about the existence of the outside world, and when to just sit reading in his office.

It was in the way Seto put his coat over his little brother when he fell asleep, not smiling or tucking wayward black hair behind his ears, but still making sure his feet weren't cold.

It was in the way Yami always waited until Yuugi had fallen asleep before retiring into the Puzzle.

It was in the way Anzu collected an extra lunch for Jounouchi from the cafeteria and deposited it in front of him, whether or not he'd told her he had nothing to eat.

It was in the way Raphael repeated each name of those he'd lost before he went to sleep each night, no matter how tired he was.

It was in the way Mai trawled Duellist Kingdom looking for Star Chips she didn't actually need.

It was in the way Isis would stop whatever important work she was doing to talk to Malik, even if she had a deadline, or a government official on the phone, and her brother had nothing to offer except noncommittal grunts.

It was in the way Ryou carefully kept all his letters to Amane in a lockbox, which he eventually brought out and showed his friends after they returned from Egypt and stopped calling him just Bakura.

It was in the way Amelda reduced himself to a duelling machine for the memory of his brother.

It was in the way Jounouchi never had to look over his shoulder in a fight to know Honda's back was against his.

It was in the way Grandpa Mutou stopped ogling Anzu's chest and started asking her opinion on which socks went with which shirt.

It was in the way Yuugi knew the names of ballet steps without knowing how to actually do them.

It was in the way Valon sat on his porch, staring at sunsets, and saw impressions of blonde hair and violet eyes in the clouds and sky.

It was in the way Anzu rearranged Yuugi's hair so it didn't list to one side without breaking stride in whatever she was talking about.

It was in the way he didn't mind.

It was in the way nobody – not Honda, not Otogi, not even Jounouchi – ever commented about it.

It was in Rishid's tattoos.

It was in speech after declaration after speech, shouted and gritted and wept with varying degrees of consciousness but always the same amount of sincerity.

It was in sacrifice. It was in battle. It was in being reunited. It was in missing what was absent, never forgetting what was precious, and knowing the right time to let go.

Some said it was nothing. Some said it was everything. Some couldn't decide whether they wanted it or not, and others had to teach themselves what it was after a lifetime of not experiencing it. For some it was the most complicated thing in the world, while for others it was as simple, impulsive and inevitable as breathing.

It was never the same way twice, and nobody could feel it the way others did, because it was inexplicable as the meaning of life and expansive as the possibility of tomorrow. You couldn't ask someone to explain it without them resorting to clichés or waving their hands and declaring, "It just … _is_."

It _wasn't_ something that could be reduced to a corny phrase in a Hallmark greeting card.

It was hurt. It was pain. It was joy. It was fundamental. It was excessive. It was mysterious. It was effortless. It was multi-faceted. It was sometimes disturbing and downright _bizarre_. It could also be the most perfect state a heart was able to experience, even if only for a single beat.

What was it?

Well, what else could it be?

It was love.

-


	37. Sixteen: Rebecca

* * *

**37. **_**Sixteen**_** – No Doubt**

* * *

Since she was ten years old and met Anzu Mazaki's boobs, Rebecca had longed for a pair of her own. At ten, they were the only thing on Rebecca's eye-level when she talked to her 'love rival', and a constant reminder that while Rebecca had more brains in the tip of her nose than Anzu had in her whole head, Anzu still had the advantage over the little kid with the teddy bear. It wasn't as if Anzu was the next Pamela Anderson or anything, but she might as well have been as far as Rebecca's feelings went.

Even changing her hair and ditching the stuffed toy hadn't helped Rebecca feel more secure around Anzu when they met again. They were both running away from the bad guys with the world-destroying green rock, but Rebecca didn't risk blacking her own eyes while doing it. From that day forward she went to sleep each night with the fervent hope that when they next met they wouldn't be able to shake hands because they wouldn't be able to reach if they stood face to face.

At sixteen, Rebecca knew it was a pipe-dream. Her genes didn't lend themselves to being top-heavy. Her mother was petite, her grandmother petite, and Rebecca was also turning out to be a shopper in the 'extra small' section. Other girls glared at her in clothing stores, surreptitiously patting their bellies and resolving to do another hundred sit-ups tonight, but Rebecca envied them their chests and hips. Her brain had been mature for years, but she felt like a female Peter Pan – the little girl who would never grow up.

Also at sixteen, Rebecca got her PhD. She went on to take a lecturing post at Boston University, in the Computer Science department. Her grandfather secured a post at Montana State and they reluctantly parted ways. She'd been protective of her grandfather ever since … well, ever. Leaving him was a wrench, but she had to do it. He insisted, and under her tears, she was grateful to him for that.

She lived on campus and did quite well for herself. People didn't take her seriously at first, but she soon proved them wrong. More than one student went down in flames after a tangle with her razor-sharp intellect, and more than one colleague fell foul of her tongue as well. She suffered no fools and gave no quarter, nor expected any when people _did _finally get one over on her. By the time she met Yuugi and his friends again she was a valued member of the faculty and her students, though all taller than her, respected her called her Dr. Hopkins.

They'd all got older since she was ten. Even Yuugi looked more his age than he used to, though she was surprised to find _she_ was taller than _him_ now. She hugged them each in turn, but stopped when she got to Anzu. Rebecca was taller, yes, but not yet on eye level with Anzu's actual _eyes_. Thankfully her collarbone was easier to converse with.

"Hey, Rebecca," Anzu said, holding out her hand to be shaken. It was the same hand that had been laced with Yuugi's when they walked in, though they'd broken apart when she looked up from grading papers, as though she'd caught them doing something they shouldn't. However, Rebecca wasn't stupid. Far from it.

Rebecca looked around her office. She stared at the proffered hand. Took it. Shook it.

Smiled.

Maybe she wasn't built like Marylyn Monroe, but she could live with that.

* * *


	38. A Better SonDaughter: Noah, Gozaburo

* * *

**38. **_**A Better Son/Daughter**_** - Rilo Kiley**

* * *

"Father, please," Noah begged. "Please don't -"

Gozaburo checked the notes attached to his flipchart and consulted one of the technicians. Peering down at him as though pressed against the other side of the giant glass screen, and not just a pixelated image cast upon it, Noah watched in growing horror as his own father gave orders for parts of his programme to be deleted.

"Please don't do this to me," Noah implored, grabbing hold of his memories and trying to keep them together as they dissolved in his hands. Everything in the virtual world was a visual representation of simple computer tasks, to make Noah's human consciousness feel more at ease.

Never before had he felt _less_ at ease; or less like a human being.

"You'll thank me for this," Gozaburo said crisply. "I'm simply streamlining you, to make you better."

"Better at what?" Noah cried. He'd never used this sort of tone before; not with his father. Gozaburo demanded ultimate respect, not whining and pleading. Even as a toddler Noah had adjusted his own tie and sat with his hands primly in his lap. "You're _deleting_ me."

"I have a much more important job for you than just languishing here doing nothing."

"Father!" Noah screamed, feeling memories of his mother begin to fragment. He didn't have very many of her, since she died when he was still very small. Taking them away seemed crueller than anything he could ever be thankful for.

"Start uploading the link to the mainframe," Gozaburo said to a technician. "Remember to put the limiters on him. He's only to have control of Duel Monsters programmes, with priority to Seto's training curriculum."

"F-Father?" Noah whispered. Seto was the boy who'd been brought here after Noah had his accident, though originally he'd been intended as Noah's competitor, to sharpen his ruthlessness so he could one day inherit Kaiba Corp and run it in just the same way as his father. "I'm you're son," he said desperately.

"And you're going to help your brother. I know you don't like him, Noah, and what better opponent could he have than someone who wants nothing more than to beat him?"

"But I don't -"

"Turn off his voice capacity. I have a meeting with Industrial Illusions at three, and I need to be able to concentrate if we're going to finish before then."

Noah wasn't even allowed to scream as all his humanity was deleted, save for his hatred of Seto, and he was uploaded into the system as nothing more than a file marked 'first draft'.

* * *


	39. Open Road Song: Honda

* * *

**39. **_**Open Road Song**_** – Eve 6**

* * *

They met on the open road, one in front of the other on a stretch of highway where it was rare to see any living creature. Honda pulled up as close as he dared, intending to overtake until the other rider glanced around and gunned it. The glance hadn't been to establish he was there, but a clear challenge. Under his helmet, Honda grinned and held on tight.

Eventually they pulled into a truck stop; the kind where you had to have a death wish to eat the food and a strong desire to contract cholera if you drank anything without disinfecting it first. Slugging bleach was probably healthier than the sodas Honda paid for, forgoing dusty straws and just wiping one ungloved finger around the mouth of his bottle when he took both outside. It was the etiquette of the open road – whoever arrived last bought the drinks, and Honda had been outstripped in the last stretch.

The other rider accepted the bottle but didn't drink, still breathing hard under the hot sun in leathers and helmet. His chest went in and out rapidly. If he had drunk he probably would've choked.

"You're pretty good," Honda remarked.

He'd been on the road since the end of high school, using up the last of his free time to indulge his passion for motorcycles before college claimed him. Yuugi and the others thought him mad but wished him luck. He was, after all, the level-headed one of the group – Mr. Sensible, You-Can-Count-on-Me-in-a-Crisis, I-Used-to-Be-on-the-School-Cleaning-Committee Hiroto Honda. Just riding off into the sunset was the last thing anyone expected of him.

Actually, that was probably why he'd done it. Adult life was rumbling towards them with alarming speed, squashing anything that didn't fit into the pattern of who it intended them to be. Honda wasn't stupid. He knew he couldn't stop himself from growing up and doing grown-up things, but before that he wanted one crazy summer, and part of that meant a saddle, a sunset and a set of wheels.

He sensed this rider shared his love of riding just for the sake of riding. Nobody this far out in the wilderness rode because they were going somewhere. They rode because they were riding _away_ from something, or because the ride was the most important thing of all.

Honda chugged his soda. "It's not poison," he said, gesturing to the one in his new companion's gloved hand. "I haven't dropped dead yet, so I'm sure it's safe for you to drink."

The other rider placed the bottle on the ground next to that incredibly sweet customised bike. Honda admired the clean lines, the shining chrome, and resolved to ask about how long it'd taken to modify it that way. One pop later and the guy's helmet was off, revealing just who Honda had been riding with for the last thirty miles.

"Cheers, mate," said Valon, giving him a thumbs up. "I appreciate it. Gotta admit, though, I never thought the day would come when one of you lot bought _me_ a drink."

* * *


	40. Balloons: VivianSiegfried

**A/N****:** This one is dedicated to MyAibou, who needs some serious cheering up right now. I know this won't even make a dent, babs, but know that you're in my thoughts.

* * *

**40. **_**Balloons**_** – Dong Bang Shin Ki**

* * *

Siegfried liked to think he wasn't such a boring workhorse as Seto Kaiba. It was one of the things he vaunted most – that he could get any job done as well as Kaiba Corp's austere CEO, but better, in half the time, and with far more charisma.

Still, even _his_ patience was wearing thin at the constant interruptions.

He stared at the multicoloured balloons currently squeezing into his office ahead of the unfortunate delivery boy. The boy's hat was askew when he finally popped into the room and handed them over. Siegfried stood, wondering what the heck he was supposed to do with to dozen helium-filled balloons shaped like hearts. Perhaps he could scatter them around the building and call it a morale-boosting exercise. Or maybe –

Maybe he could wrap the strings one by one around Vivian Wong's pretty little neck, and then let go to see how far off the ground they'd take her.

"Helloooo!"

_Speak of the devil and she shall appear. _Siegfried did an admirable job of not flinching when a familiar face burst through the melee of balloons and grinned at him, the tip of her nose barely two inches from his own.

"Do you like my present?"

"They're from you?"

"Who did you _think_ they were from?" She pulled back, but only to jab his nose with the tip of her finger. "Silly boy."

Vivian was a beautiful woman with a zest for life he found refreshing, but her crush on him since the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix was now bordering on infuriating. He could cope with admiration from a distance, but up close and personal was a different matter. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only way Vivian worked. She did nothing by half and threw her whole irrepressible spirit into whatever latest project or whim had caught her attention. She was giving even his melodramatic tendencies a run for their money.

"I would," he deadpanned, "have preferred roses."

"I know, but you have roses everywhere anyhow. I wanted to do something _special_, and since you refuse to eat chocolate – despite coming from the country that produces the _best_ chocolate in the entire _world_ -"

"A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips."

"And what lovely hips they are, Siegfried darling."

"Please don't call me darling."

"All right, cuddle-bumps."

Siegfried sighed. If Vivian was up here on the fourteenth floor that meant she'd intimidated another secretary into letting her past, and probably frightened the poor girl out of her wits in the process. He suspected he'd have to place another ad in tomorrow's newspaper. This was costing him a fortune in temps.

And yet … somehow he couldn't take the easy option and just tell Vivian to go boil her head and leave him alone.

Leonhart was going to have a field day when he found out his untouchable older brother allowed a grown woman with pigtails call him 'cuddle-bumps' without reprisal.

* * *


	41. Please Remember Me: Main Cast

* * *

**41. **_**Please Remember Me **_**– Tim McGraw**

* * *

Anzu, Jounouchi and Honda waited nervously for news. When Grandpa Mutou arrived it only ramped up the tension another notch, until the air in the hospital waiting room was thick as custard and twice as difficult to breathe without choking.

"A fire?" he echoed when Jounouchi told him what had happened. "But how? What was he even doing by the waterfront?"

"We don't know," Jounouchi replied miserably. "It looked like someone had set up a duel there."

"But why would he go alone? I don't understand."

"Neither do we."

Anzu stared at her thumbs and worried at her cuticles with her fingernails. Guilt jabbed into her gut like a stomach-ache. Yuugi had been there alone because she had _left_ him alone when she went to fetch Jounouchi and Honda. She should never have left. She should have stayed – should have _been_ there with him when he needed her. The skin around her nails was tender and raw, evidence of how long they'd been waiting and how little they knew – and how the little they _did_ know was all bad.

"I thought I saw Bandit Keith running away," said Honda, "but that can't have been right."

"Someone-" Anzu stopped. "Someone stole the Millennium Puzzle from Yuugi, right off the street. He chased after whoever it was, and … and …" She stopped again. "It could've been Keith. He was wearing a hood that hid his face"

"Hey, stranger things have happened," Jounouchi said with false levity. It levitated about as well as a titanium balloon. That had been thrown off a cliff. On Mars.

"He wouldn't let it go," Honda said in the same half-dazed tone. "The whole frigging warehouse was on fire, and he wouldn't let it go. Even when he was unconscious from the smoke, he wouldn't let go of that necklace."

"Because it's more than just a necklace," Anzu said softly. She didn't need to elaborate further. Just as they couldn't have left Yuugi to burn, Yuugi couldn't have left Yami behind. It would have been touching if it hadn't been so terrifying.

Therefore it wasn't surprising that they all jumped up when the doctor finally emerged to tell them what the hell was going on with Yuugi. They may not have known what had happened to put him here, but they could at least find out what would happen to get him out again.

Doctor Yamamoto's expression didn't fill them with hope on this score.

"Retrograde amnesia," he told them after a lot of umming and ahhing.

"What?" Jounouchi demanded.

"But he … it was smoke inhalation!" Anzu protested.

"There was some skull trauma. He suffered a blow to the head?"

At once, Honda and Jounouchi looked absolutely mortified.

"We had to pull out the nail holding the Puzz- his necklace in place. He wouldn't let it go," Jounouchi explained. "We tried to make him, honest! But he just … would let go." It sounded stupid to anyone who didn't know the full truth.

"So you hit him?" Doctor Yamamoto prompted.

"No way!"

"He fell. Forward. When the nail popped out we flew backwards, but he fell forward. He bounced off the, um, metal wall thingy." Honda made a vague gesture with his hands. "We didn't think anything of it. I mean, the warehouse was on fire, man. We thought as long as we got him out of there before we were all barbeque, he'd be fine."

"A noble idea. You're both heroes," Doctor Yamamoto deadpanned. "But I'm afraid that fall had consequences. His current condition has to do with the _way_ Yuugi hit his head, which has had caused some trauma to his brain, resulting in retrograde amnesia, which is-"

"We know what amnesia is!" They all stared at Anzu, but she ignored everyone except Doctor Yamamoto. "Are you telling us Yuugi has lost all his memory?"

"Not all of it," Doctor Yamamoto said primly. "Retrograde amnesia is not the same as full amnesia. From what we can tell, he has perfect memories up until a certain point in his life. It is simply that he believes today _is_ that point in time, not the current moment."

"Huh?"

"Doctor." Grandpa Mutou stepped forward. "Please explain in small words. What is wrong with my grandson?" Nobody had ever heard Mr. Mutou sound so scared before.

Doctor Yamamoto sighed. "In layman's terms, he has no memory of the last five years."

"_What_?" Jounouchi thundered. Anzu gasped. Honda just looked shell-shocked. All three of them were immediately running through all that had happened in the last five years. Where had Yuugi been five years ago? Hiding in a corner playing games by himself, friendless and alone, with an unsolved Millennium Puzzle and a catalogue of bruises from school bullies and whoever else felt like picking on him ...

"That … that can't be true," Anzu murmured through her hands.

But it _was_ true. It was terribly, hideously true – which they discovered to their horror when they were finally allowed in to see Yuugi, and their friend smiled up at them without a hint of recognition.

"Hello," he said, polite and agreeable, but ever so slightly timid. Everyone noticed the way his hands bunched in the covers at the sight of so many tall people advancing on his bed. "D-Do I know you?"

* * *


	42. Signal Fire: AnzuYuugi

**

* * *

**

42. _**Signal Fire**_** – Snow Patrol**

* * *

"It's really you," Anzu whispered with the last of her voice. The rest had dried up in the confusion and magic and _sheer terror_ of being involved in a the-world-really-does-hang-in-the-balance-and-oh-did-we-mention-we're-deciding-its-fate-with-a-children's-card-game? situation and _not_ being able to fight. She felt like a dishcloth that'd been wrung out by a sumo wrestler, dunked into a tub of blood and then tossed into a pack of hungry dogs – worried and worn out and absolutely _done_ with this whole ordeal. Seriously. _Done_.

Until, that is, Yuugi turned around and it was Yuugi, not the Pharaoh looking back at her through those purple eyes. Once upon a time she hadn't been able to tell when they'd switched, but there was something so irrevocably _Yuugi_ in his gaze that her knees gave way and she just about launched herself at him before she hit the floor.

"Anzu!" he yelped.

She hugged him tighter. He smelled of dust and desert and places he hadn't been, except that he had, except that it'd been the Pharaoh, except that … and … oh to hell with it. Screw higher brain functions, she was going on autopilot and sinking into her emotional core for a minute.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she said somehow, her stomach churning and her tears flowing freely. So what if people were watching? Let 'em watch. Yuugi was back and that was all that mattered.

"I'm … glad to see you too," Yuugi replied, clearly bewildered. Apparently in his world getting your soul sucked out, stolen, held to ransom, nearly used as lizard-food and finally returned in a burst of blinding light didn't merit a hug. It probably didn't even merit a handshake – not from her. He'd always had weird ideas about physical contact. She was his oldest friend and he couldn't even stand her holding his shoulder without wriggling away and making some excuse.

She pressed herself closer to him like she'd never let go, squashing her chest until it was actually painful to inflate her lungs. Yuugi choked a little, so she finally loosened her arms, wiping her eyes with the heel of one hand and so missing his red his face had gone.

There were voices behind them. Jounouchi and Honda, given tacit permission by Anzu's behaviour, ran up to abandon their machismo and deliver their own hugs. They whapped him on the back and noogied him, but they hugged him too.

And then the room was trembling more than Anzu's hands, but for one last moment she was oblivious to it all. She just kept staring at Yuugi's face, wondering why she'd never before noticed the nuances of how he smiled compared to Yami – that slight crinkle in his nose, the way his cheeks raised and he showed more of his top teeth the moment it turned from a simple smile to a full-blown grin.

"I don't know what I would've done if I'd lost you for good," gurgled up from inside her of its own accord.

"Erm …" Yuugi blinked rapidly, until Jounouchi yelled something and he, at least, realised the severity of the situation. After all, the room was caving in. You couldn't just ignore something like that because your friend was staring at you like you were a candy bar and she hadn't eaten for a week.

But when they ran out, it was Anzu who grabbed Yuugi's hand and dragged him along. She wanted him safe and well, and she wanted him to stay that way. After all this, no way was she letting him out of her sight again.

* * *


	43. Never Alone: Yuugi

* * *

**43. **_**Never Alone **_**– Barlow Girl**

* * *

The first night he spent without Yami, Yuugi slept badly, and then not at all. The hotel room was unfamiliar, the rotating ceiling fan a constant distraction. He tossed and turned, finally rising to pace and then sit on the wicker chair in the corner. No matter what he did, he couldn't get past the gaping puncture wound in his own mind.

He'd been fused with Yami for so long that being without him felt strange, even though he'd lived more of his life without a spirit sharing his head than with one. Everything was different now. He wasn't the same person he'd been before he solved the Millennium Puzzle, when his life had altered so much that the Yuugi Mutou of two years ago would've gaped in amazement to know what was going to happen to him. He wasn't even the same person he'd been when he arrived in Egypt. The Yuugi of two _days_ ago would have gaped that he'd actually gone through with it and exorcised his own brain.

Yami – no _Atem_ – was better off now. He'd moved on, just as he was always supposed to. Just as Yuugi always knew he would. He'd known when the plane touched down in Cairo, but knowing it and _knowing _it were two very different things.

The 'someday' from the end of that sentence had never tasted so bitter before.

"I miss you," Yuugi whispered into the pulsing void, but all he heard in reply was his own voice. It was all he'd ever hear from now on.

It echoed.

Did other people's inner voices echo, or was this just a product of his imagination. It felt like he was grieving. Maybe he was.

In the morning he'd feel better, when he saw his friends and knew that he wasn't really alone, but at this moment Yuugi felt lonelier than he ever had as a bullied social pariah with no parents.

He put his face in his hands and wept until the sun came up.

* * *


	44. Superman: Valon

* * *

**44. **_**Superman**_** – Sandi Thom**

* * *

Valon didn't know whether he could be classed as a hero. At any rate, he wasn't a villain – not anymore. He couldn't claim to ride around the country doing random good deeds or anything, but he definitely erred more on the heroic side of things than he used to. Maybe it was just a knee-jerk reaction against everything he'd learned about Dartz and Doma, but these days he looked back at his past actions and shuddered.

His favourite question: 'What was I _thinking_?"

Answer: What Dartz wanted him to think.

Others might try to use that as a get-out clause – "It wasn't my fault, I was only doing what my boss wanted me to do, and he was _very_ 'persuasive'."

Not Valon. He knew that although the Oricalchos had influenced and manipulated his thoughts in directions Dartz wanted, it hadn't placed anything in his head that wasn't already there. It inflated and embellished, drew out dark impulses from their hidden corners and amplified them, but it couldn't create the anger that had motivated him his whole life, nor the bitterness over Sister Mary Catherine and the thugs who burned her alive in her own church. Those were all his own.

Therefore his debts were all his own, too.

It hadn't been easy tracking down the people he'd challenged and beaten in duels – those whose souls had been forfeit when they lost to him. Some had blocked out the episode entirely, while others hated him so unconditionally he was lucky to have escaped them with his life and limbs all intact. Nonetheless, he continued in his crackpot quest to find everyone he'd wronged and make amends.

A few accepted a simple apology; others wanted him to pay some kind of penance. The worst, however, were the ones who remembered everything – far too clearly – and hadn't been able to go on after they were released from the Leviathan's belly. Nightmares chased and caught up with them long before Valon managed to do the same.

He'd made amends to two such victims by giving them a proper burial, and one more by standing by dredging up Sister Mary Catherine's old prayers, vainly hoping the guy would find the peace in the next life that he hadn't been able to grasp in this one.

"Why are you doing this?" asked the daughter of this third man, when she found Valon beside her father's grave and remembered him from their duel. It had been three years. She'd been thirteen at the time. Now she was blossoming, though her mouth was a hard line and her eyes even harder. "What do you hope to achieve?"

Valon looked at the simple headstone and sighed. "I don't know. But it's still something I've got to do."

"You'll never make everything all right," she said bitterly. "Not you."

"That part I do know," he said, heading for his bike in the parking lot and the next name on his list.

* * *


	45. Believe: Dartz

* * *

**45. **_**Believe **_**– The Bravery**

* * *

The rot in Atlantis went far deeper than Dartz had ever realised. He'd thought himself king of a utopia – an empire of light and happiness – but the truth was anything but. His kingdom was rife with sin, and its rampant spread was his fault. He'd been blinded by his own beliefs in the goodness of his people, arrogant in his conviction that nothing could touch them, and now he was paying the price.

He couldn't even sense the darkness polluting his own family. His beloved Cyrena, the light of his life next to the daughter they'd made together, had died because he couldn't sense the decay setting into her heart. Fate had seen fit to punish him by giving him the task of slaying the monster she'd become, and as he plunged the blade home Dartz could think only of her eyes the night after their wedding, when she'd been full of love and hope for the future. As his new queen, she'd had such plans for making Atlantis great. The happiness of their people had been her primary concern, and together they had worked to eradicate poverty, sickness and corruption from their land.

But now he knew that Cyrena's actions hid a deeper kind of corruption, and that knowledge made him distrustful of everything else he'd ever held sacred. If Cyrena, the light of his life, could be filled with such darkness, then what about their daughter, or his own father, the old king, or _anyone_ around him?

Dartz stepped away from the monster's body, dagger trembling by his side. It was an ornamental thing he only used for formal occasions, but the blade was still wickedly sharp – enough to punch through scales into the flesh beneath. Cyrena's blood was black and thick, like tar. It stank like a body left rotting in the heat for a week, even though it was actually still warm with only body-heat.

It was his fault for not noticing and doing something to stop the darkness in her from spreading like a cancer. It was his fault for not noticing what was really going on in his kingdom. He was king; people relied on him to do what was best for them.

So it was his responsibility to clean up this mess. He would rip the darkness out of Atlantis's heart. No more would blades be only ornamental.

"I swear," he whispered over his wife's corpse, "I will not let this threat live."

Dartz was declaring war on the darkness threatening his world, and he would exorcise it even if he had to kill everyone to do it.

* * *


	46. Dance into the Light: Step JohnnyAnzu

**A/N****:** Odoriko is Japanese for 'dancer'.

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**46. **_**Dance into the Light**_** – Phil Collins**

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"You're really into her, aren't you, boss?"

"Who?" Abbo tried to crane to see while not giving up his lackadaisical position propping up the wall. When coupled with his stricken expression it made him look like he was the first man in existence to experience menstrual cramps. "_That_ chick? That's the one you've been all gaa-gaa over the past few weeks?"

Shinji nodded on Johnny's behalf. "She's the one who beat him into the ground at DDR that day you were at Grammy's baking cookies."

Abbo scowled. "Shut _up_, dude. I told you I wasn't making no stinking cookies -"

"Muffins, then. Or was it _fairy_ cakes?"

Abbo lunged at his buddy, but stopped when Johnny grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him back into place against the wall. "Can it, both of you," he snapped.

Abbo scowled some more, but ignored Shinji to look again at the girl who'd just walked into the arcade with three other guys. "She's okay, I guess. Nice rack. Good legs. I can see why you dig her."

"I don't _dig_ her," Johnny snapped, turning his back on the newcomers and folding his arms. It was his Don't Even Think About It stance, and both Abbo and Shinji knew it of old.

They'd been part of Step Johnny's crew since he was just Johnny Odoriko, the kid with the braces whose Mom put him in for dancing lessons because he kept tripping over his own orthopaedic shoes and getting beaten up because he was too clumsy to run away. When he left high school and metamorphosed into Step Johnny, King of the Domino Arcade, they were all too happy to hang with him and bask in his reflected glory. Being Step Johnny's boys was better than being just 'the unemployed dropouts'.

Shinji raised his eyebrow and studied the tense line of Johnny's shoulders. "You _so_ dig her."

"So why don't you just go over and put the moves on her?" Abbo asked.

"She's still in high school, nimrod."

"So? That's never stopped you before. Besides, have you seen the length of her skirt? And look how many guys she's already hanging with." He squinted. "Hey, I recognise the blond one. I think I met him downtown once. He got caught shoplifting or something. You heard of Hirutani, right? I think that kid was in his crew. Got a criminal record out of it. Peanut stuff, but girls dressed like _that _don't hang with guys like _him_ unless they're putting looks like she'd be a good ride. You should – glrrrrk!"

"Boss?" Shinji looked aghast at Johnny, and then at the counter. "C'mon, boss, not in here."

Johnny slowly unclenched his fists out of Abbo's collar and let him drop. "Don't you _ever_ talk about Anzu that way again, you hear me?"

"Shit, boss," Abbo coughed.

"You. Hear. Me?"

"Sure, sure, whatever. Jeez Louise, what rattled your cage?"

"You … okay, Johnny?" Shinji ventured.

Johnny just glowered at them and then stalked out of the arcade with his elbows locked straight at his sides. His boys watched him go, noting how the girl who'd caused their boss to act all crazy hadn't even noticed him. She chatted away, laughing with the guys by her side and ruffling the hair of the smallest one. Despite the outfit, she didn't look anything like the kind of girls Johnny usually went for.

"Weird, man," Abbo croaked, rubbing his throat. "Totally weird."

Shinji shook his head. "You said it."

* * *


	47. Recovery: Mai

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**47. **_**Recovery **_**– Funeral for a Friend**

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Mai had always thought rape victims who turned the shower so hot they scalded themselves were the fabrication of books and media. No way would anyone do something so symbolically cliché in real life.

_I guess I really am just one big cliché_, she thought the night after Battle City, squashed up at one end of the tub with blistering water pelting her hair flat to her head. Her skin was red and her scalp hurt, but she didn't get up or turn the temperature down.

She couldn't go out for days because her skin stayed raw. Eventually she had to visit a doctor, who gave her a salve and looked at her askance when she said she'd had an electrical fault with the hot water gauge.

And she had. Multiple times. The only difference between reality and her story was that the electrical fault was between the neurons in her brain, that kept firing off and making her reach to burn away another layer of skin whenever she bathed.

She tried baths, but that was no use. She couldn't walk for a week on her blistered feet, and when she finally did go out she limped along in sneakers instead of her preferred heels. Heels made her feel elegant but strong – a woman in control of her own destiny. She wondered whether she could've brought herself to wear them even if she hadn't damaged her feet. When her soles were healed enough she spent an entire hour staring at her favourite pair of purple boots, and another hour easing her feet into them. Sitting on the bed in unzipped boots, she felt anything but strong.

By the time she entered her next tournament she was settling for an all-over body wash out of a bowl of lukewarm water to make sure she didn't hurt herself. Her resolve always lasted until she actually got near a dial or faucet she could keep twisting until it couldn't go any further. She felt like a freak in her lavish apartment, washing like she couldn't afford modern luxuries, but it was safer that way.

It didn't make her feel any more in control, though. If anything, it made her feel like her grip on her own life was slipping away from her with each passing day. She couldn't face other people, or at least not those she knew – not even when the swellings and redness went down and she started wearing heels and short skirts regularly again. She felt like her failure to be true to herself would be smeared across her face in thick black marker pen, easily readable and impossible to wash off with just a bowl of lukewarm water. Strangers mocking her behind her back at the tournament just made her feel worse, and when she looked at her glass trophy her mind leaped to the next stage of that dangerous spiral. She threw it away from her, smashing it on the ground and leaving the horribly tempting shards behind.

Valon and Dartz offered a release from her demons, and not just the ones with spiky hair and multiple personalities. When Dartz touched her forehead and the power of the Oricalchos infused her, Mai's mind was clear for the first time in months. She strode away from him, focussed and grateful and _in control_.

That night she had a shower and didn't touch the temperature dial once. The next morning she dressed in heels without hesitation and strode down to the waiting set of motorcycles. There was one without a rider, with a purple crash helmet hanging off the handle. She threw her leg over the saddle and slipped on the helmet, feeling every inch the elegant, strong woman she was always supposed to be.

"You feeling better?" Valon asked.

"She got the juice, didn't she?" Amelda said irritably, obviously eager to be off and not sitting around playing chitchat.

"The Oricalchos purifies us," Raphael said in that serious gravelly voice of his. "It cleanses us of the sins that tarnish the rest of humanity."

"Melodramatic idiot," Valon muttered, shooting Mai a grin and roll of his eyes as he gunned his motorcycle's engine.

But Mai shook her head. Raphael was right. The Oricalchos had crystallised her thoughts, un-muddying the waters of her mind and letting her see what was really going on in ways she'd never been able to before. But it had done more than that, even though just thinking it made her feel like a giant cliché all over again.

It'd made her feel clean

* * *


	48. Going Down in Flames: Valon, Mai

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**48. **_**Going Down in Flames**_** – 3 Doors Down**

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_Flames and burning and hot, too hot, hothothottoohot – but got to get through anyway. Got to reach her. Got to … the screaming. Oh God, the screaming is so loud. She's screaming for … for help! But I can't … I can't reach … Sister Mary Catherine, I'm here! I'm here, but I can't reach you! Please, God, no! __**No**__!_

"Valon, you idiot, wake _up_!"

Valon came to with a start "Whu?" He was bathed in sweat but felt icy cold. Blinking in the grey pre-dawn light, his eyes slid to the face frowning into his over the back of the couch. "Mai?"

"You woke me up," she said tersely.

Valon glanced around, taking in his surroundings and feeling the knot of tension in his stomach ease a little. They were in a motel; a cheap place they'd fallen into when tiredness made them both start weaving across the road. He'd taken the couch without question, but apparently even the closed door of the bedroom hadn't been enough to stop him disturbing Mai's rest.

"Sorry," he mumbled, swinging his legs to touch the floor.

He was still wearing his boots, too tired to remove them those few hours earlier when they'd arrived. They clumped loudly, the carpet pile thinner than a shadow. He'd been in some nasty dumps before when on the road for Doma, but this was the first time he'd ever crashed anyplace with Mai in tow. She hadn't been sent on many missions so far, and none on her own yet. Still, she struck him as the kind of woman who was used to more than crummy places like this. He wondered what she thought of it.

Mai, straightening up behind the couch, frowned at the back of his head. Valon could feel it burning a bald spot. "You were screaming," she said without preamble.

Valon froze. Neither Raphael nor Amelda had ever told him _that_ when they were forced to share lodgings. Perhaps it was because they just didn't care what his nightmares were about, since they had plenty of their own, but he doubted that. On the road sleep was a valuable commodity, and both Amelda and Raphael had short fuses. No way would they have let him carry on sleeping if he was waking them the way he'd apparently woken Mai.

Damn it.

The Oricalchos wasn't a complete fix-all. It dulled pain, made it easier to work through and fenced you off from it with other emotions like anger and bitterness, but it couldn't take that pain away. It could hoist you above it, where pain could jump but never reach you, but eventually your cable would snap and you'd plunge right back into the thick of your own personal demons. Valon had borne Doma's mark since he was fifteen. Now, in his twenties and faced with something he never anticipated when he allowed Dartz to touch his forehead and inflict that mark upon him, its effectiveness was finally beginning to wear off.

Valon wouldn't look at Mai; didn't respond to what she'd said. He couldn't. He'd hinted and been obvious about his feelings for her, and she'd been blunt that she didn't reciprocate. He'd be damned if he finished off the last of his pride by announcing that those feelings were eroding the hold the Oricalchos had over him. Things like love and affection couldn't survive in the soup of emotions favoured by dark magic. It was either submerge in it or overpower it.

_And guess which way mine went? _

"Valon?" Mai said brusquely.

"It was nothing," he relied, equally brusque – far more so than he would usually be with her.

He felt her flinch. It was okay for her to dish out snappishness like it was going out of style, but not him. He was supposed to keep coming back for more punishment, and him straying from the rulebook had thrown her. "Uh … well _fine_. You're _welcome_." She pushed herself off the couch and stomped back to the bedroom, slamming the door hard enough to make the paper-thin walls sway.

Valon sat with his face in his hands, trying to force away mages of burning churches and all too familiar screams as the sun came up and a new day got underway without them.

* * *


	49. I'm So Sick: MaiRaphael

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**49. **_**I'm So Sick **_**– Flyleaf**

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She came to him. _She _came to _him_. That mattered afterwards.

He was never quite sure why. They were always on the road, sometimes together, sometimes apart. He went where he was told, following Master Dartz's orders because Master Dartz knew what was best – for him, for them all, for the whole planet. Valon said they'd 'hitched their stars' to Dartz and Doma, but when he looked into the sky he didn't see any star for him, just a black void where his might once have been. If he'd ever had one, his star had fallen a long time ago, and though he'd travelled the world in honour of their mission, he'd never found its crater, and never felt whole since his family was taken from him.

He was used to being alone, but that didn't stop him when she came to him. There was no personal connection; for all that they were on the same side working towards the same goals. He'd said maybe a handful of things to her since she joined, and she looked on all of them with vague disdain. The only thing that passed through him was surprise when she appeared in the doorway to his room, and until she left again he wasn't thinking about anything much.

She was used to being alone, too. Maybe it was because of that. Maybe she was tired of being that much alone. Maybe it was because she was sick of Valon making puppy-dog eyes at her, trying to alleviate the loneliness in her head and her heart when she just wanted it lifted from her body.

Oh yes, he'd seen that too. He'd seen the flickers crossing Valon's face whenever she walked past him with her stray-cat-strut. Valon liked her. He'd actually taken a bullet for her when they duelled someone with a trigger-happy wife in Mexico. You couldn't make up anything more clichéd than that. The wife took exception to them taking her husband's soul, but Valon played hero and trailed blood from his shoulder all the way across the border. When Amelda dug the bullet out, Valon bit down so hard on the piece of wood they gave him that it shattered and he got splinters in his tongue. She never thanked him for that. The pathetic fool would've taken ten bullets for a kind word from her, and probably would've carved out his own heart with a blunt knife if she offered to come to his room in the dead of night when everyone else was asleep.

But she didn't go to Valon. She came to _him_, and that mattered.

It mattered when he stared at the cracked whitewashed ceiling and wondered why he hadn't just sent her away again. It mattered in the morning at breakfast, under Valon's hurt and accusing stare. It mattered because he shouldn't have _cared_ that Valon's stare was hurt and accusing.

Nothing was supposed to matter now except the mission.

But of all of them, she came to him. _She _came to _him_.

And somehow that mattered.

* * *


	50. Two Guys for Every Girl: Rebecca

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**50. **_**Two Guys for Every Girl **_**– Peaches**

* * *

Rebecca's head fell into her hands. For once, she wasn't bothered when Anzu reached across and patted her on the shoulder. Once upon a time what was, to her, a condescending gesture would have made her calculate the correct velocity needed for a hand to smack a face onto the back of someone's head. Now, however, even Anzu Mazaki couldn't piss her off – not least of all because she no longer saw Anzu as a love rival for Yuugi's heart.

_Think of the devil and he shall appear_.

The squeak of chair legs on paving stone heralded Yuugi's return to their table. Rebecca didn't uncover her face, so Anzu turned her pat into a reassuring rub and asked the question that needed asking.

"So, what are they up to?"

"You … I'm not sure I should really say."

"C'mon, Yuugi, this isn't funny."

"Jounouchi thinks it's hilarious."

"Which is why the lump on his head won't go down for a week and he's been banished to fetch us all ice-creams."

"I did wonder where he and Honda went."

"So …?"

Rebecca finally raised her face. "Yuugi?" she said, no longer caring about the pathetically pleading note in her voice.

Yuugi's resolve crumpled like a cheap suit. He sighed. "They're competing to see who can find you the biggest bouquet in town. And get it here the fastest. I think there are chocolates involved, too. You do like truffles, I hope?"

She groaned. "I mentioned them once. _Once_!" Back to face-in-hands.

She wasn't upset, just really, really tired of the whole thing. Who knew being romantically pursued could be so … well, _exhausting_? She used to think it was bad being the pursuer and 'competing' with Anzu. Little did she know at the time that Yuugi's heart had belonged to Anzu since they were kids poring over a broken Gameboy. There was too much between them for Rebecca to ever be more than a fly in their sweet-smelling ointment – too much history, too much shared experience, too much _emotion_. Rebecca wasn't stupid. Eventually she'd accepted what the rest of the world already knew, and joined in with everybody else in making the two lovebirds see it too.

It had still hurt, though. For a while, in her hormone-besotted mind, she'd thought she would never find anyone for her who wasn't already taken, too old, or just not interested.

She kind of wished that _had_ been true. Not that she didn't enjoy the idea of two guys fighting over her – _her_, the big-brained prodigal freak-child with the glasses, freckles and overbite – but somehow she'd thought it would be more enjoyable. In actual fact it was just really, really, _really _gruelling.

"ETA?" she asked through her fingers.

Anzu hissed a breath between her teeth.

"Um …" said Yuugi. "About a minute?"

Rebecca heard the roar of engines and parted her fingers just enough to see two long black limousines rocketing down the street towards their little café. From each of the back windows poked a head, black and red hair blowing behind them and faces peeled back as they urged their drivers to break the sound barrier so they could arrive first. To anyone on the street, the logos of Kaiba Corp. and Schroider Corp. on the doors would've been nothing but indistinguishable smears of colour.

"Hide me?" Rebecca beseeched.

"Are you kidding?" Jounouchi asked from behind her, having emerged from the café to witness her impending fate. He held forward three dripping cornets, each with a decorative wafer. "Take your stupid ice-creams. I'm getting out of here before I get trampled by rich teenage boys."

* * *


	51. Black is the Colour: Anzu, Yuugi

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**51. **_**Black is the Colour of My True Love's Heart**_** – Never-Ending White Lights**

_

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_

She could just about feel her legs. They were wobbly and shaky – _wibblewobblewibblewobble_ – and they hurt, but they still worked. She could still use them – _stillkickwiththem_ – and that was enough. She got to her wobbly, shaky feet and made her wobbly, shaky way … away. That was as far as she could form the thought. She needed to leave.

_Awayawayaway!_

The air was cold. It had been snowing, big fat flakes that made the world look like something from a Christmas card. She'd been writing hers last night, scratching out names of her father and those of his family who'd stayed in America in her cursive script and tucking tiny gifts into each envelope. She liked giving gifts when they were unexpected, though there were only so many things you could slip into an envelope before people guessed what they were, or you got charge the Earth for postage because of the weight. She'd limited herself to key-chains and candies this year, but that was okay. Everybody liked key-chains and candies, especially when you made sure to get something ridiculously appropriate, the way she always did – something that reflected people's personalities and … and ...

_Blurry. Scatteredenvelopes. Handandfeet. Armsandlegs. _

Her legs really, really hurt now. There was a big scrape on her left shin that had soaked the front of her tights bright red, and another on the back of one hand where it had grazed the brick wall. Her skirt was wet too. The back was cold from melted snow, as was the back of her jacket. She tried to pull it around herself, but the zip had broken last week and her fingers were too fumbly – _rumblefumblycrumbly_ – to pull it up anyway. She'd just thrown on this jacket as she left the house because it was handy. She hadn't meant to stay out long – _justmailingmycardsMomI'llbebackinaminute …_

There was something under her fingernails – _redredred_ – but she didn't want to look at that right now. She just wanted to get back to the main street she'd left so she could dash through the shortcut to the Post Office and get out of the snow.

Except that she'd left all her envelopes on the ground, and there was no way she was going back there to fetch them.

Where was she going then?

_Awayawayaway!_

Her ribs hurt. He'd been heavy. When she kicked him, it had felt like sinking her foot into a lump of half-dried concrete. She was a little surprised nothing was broken, actually. Maybe she'd done more damage than she originally thought. She liked to think so. A nice big fat bruise the colour of a stormy sky, right in the middle of his stomach – _fightbackfightscreamthat'swhattheyalwayssaytodo_ – and another on his leg – _Idroppedmypepperspraynononocomebackcomeback_ – to match the one he'd left much higher on hers.

She tried to smile. It wouldn't come.

She surprised herself with the sound of the doorbell and the realisation she was the one who'd pushed it. Everything seemed blurry and out of focus, like a photograph taken while stumbling, giving only the impression of shapes and smeared colours when the film was developed. Did she hit her head, or was this something else? Whose door was this? Her own? It opened and she blinked at the profusion of fairy lights and tinsel.

"Oh my God, what happened to _you_?"

Hands tried to touch her. She flinched away.

"Anzu?"

She blinked, shaking her head to put everything back into focus. "Yuugi." The name came out a sigh; one long gust to blow away everything clogging up her thoughts – _getinsidegetsafegetaway_. She needed to consider things clearly. She needed to think this through and figure out what to do next. She hadn't even been consciously aware of where she was headed, but she was glad it was here.

Yuugi gazed at her with open concern. "What happened?" he asked again. "Are you all right? You look a real mess. Were you mugged? Can I get you anything? A towel? Some bandages? Anzu, talk to me."

She stared at him. He was wearing his Beaver Warrior slippers and had glitter in his hair. Somehow the sight of this, compared to the burning hurt inside her and the feel of blood soaking into her skirt and tights, made her wobbly knees give out. She sank into the snow that surrounded the back door, since there had only been time to shovel the front of the store this morning. Mr Mutou couldn't do it because of his bad back, but he never even had to ask Yuugi to do it instead. Yuugi was kind like that. He was giving and nice and safe and … and _safe_ …

_Ohgodohgodohgod_.

The ground was freezing when it met her knees and the palms of her hands.

"Grandpa!" she heard Yuugi scream. "_Grandpa!_"

"I was … just mailing some cards," she murmured, hugging herself and shivering with more than just cold. It had taken less than five minutes. She could barely finish writing a personalised holiday message in five minutes, but it had taken less than that for someone to pull her off her feet in the smelly, noisy alley behind the restaurant down the street. She didn't even get a good look at his face, though she'd raked her nails down it and still carried the evidence under them. That was important. She remembered watching TV shows where the police said that was important, so she balled her hands into fists to stop the snow taking away the evidence of what had happened to her.

_Redredredredred _–

She'd been less than five minutes away from Yuugi's house –

_Getinsidegetsafegetaway _–

Less than five minutes from safety –

_Supposedtobestrongdon'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry_ –

"That's all," she said through her tears. "I was j-just mailing some Christmas cards."

**

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	52. Under the Apple Tree: Mana, Atem

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**52. **_**Under the Apple Tree**_- Takeharu Ishimoto

* * *

Mana had always liked apples. Even though it was unseemly, she learned to climb trees just so she could get them without asking for help. Until the day she died, the image of Atem reaching for one juicy apple and Mahaad being bitten by a snake would live with her. She promised herself that day: she would never need to rely on others for something she wanted. She would learn to cope by herself so nobody would ever get hurt over something so silly and small. Dying was too momentous for it to be wasted on fruit.

"You shouldn't be doing that." The voice came from below her.

"I know." Mana swung her legs around to straddle the thickest branch. From there it was simple enough to reach up and pluck a particularly nice apple. However, instead of biting into it she threw it down without looking where she was aiming. She heard the thunk of it hitting a dry palm, and the crunch of teeth breaking its skin, and she reached for another. "You shouldn't be enjoying my ill-gotten gains."

"I know." Another crunch.

She munched in companionable silence for a while. It was pretty much the only time she could manage any kind of silence, actually. Mahaad was always telling her she talked too much during their magic lessons, but she replied that he always wanted to teach her a selection of impressive but complicated spells when she was more interested in finding out how to do the wide range of simple magics.

"You are going to be a court magician someday," he would say stiffly. "That 'complicated stuff' will be your livelihood, and you will only know how to do them in part."

"So maybe I'll give up courtly life and, I dunno, go work on a fruit farm or something."

And Mahaad would always shake his head, sigh and mutter, "I don't know why I even bother with you."

"Because I'm cute, and Atem thinks I'm fun, and you can't say no to me."

She sat astride her tree branch now, stared up at the sky and flicked her apple core away.

"Some might say it's a bad idea to throw your food leavings into the hair of royalty."

She grinned, still not looking own at the person standing under her. "And some might say it's a good idea for royalty to remember how to do simple stuff like catch one measly apple core before it hits him."

* * *


	53. Parallel Worlds: Main cast

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**53. **_**Parallel Worlds**_** – Elliot Minor**

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**

The first hint that something was wrong came when Anzu was late for school. It wouldn't have been a major thing for anyone else, but Anzu prided herself on being punctual and often reprimanded Jounouchi for always being tardy. That she was tardy herself was weird enough, but when she entered the classroom wild-eyed, wilder-haired, glancing around as if checking for hidden ambushes, Honda, Jounouchi and Yuugi could tell something was up.

When she just stood staring at them in open-mouthed wonder they got their next, heavy, smack-to-the-head-with-a-two-by-four clue.

"You … what are _you_ doing sitting next to Yuugi?" Anzu looked around. "And where's Ryou?"

"Ryou?" Honda echoed. "You mean Bakura?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I guess you _would _call him that. But … Yuugi?" She directed her confused gaze at him. "What are you _doing_, hanging out with these two losers?"

"Hey!" Jounouchi protested. He was no stranger to her calling him a loser, but there had been more vehemence in that remark than usual. Yuugi winced on his behalf.

"Anzu, are you feeling okay?" Yuugi asked cautiously. Worry spiked within him at her odd behaviour. "You look kind of, um, pale." Amongst other things. Actually, she looked like she hadn't slept a wink all night, and had then been greeted in the morning by a bucket of icy water and a stiff-bristled brush – to the face.

"Absolutely hunky-freaking-dory," she replied. Her manner was harsher than usual, though not harsh like she was angry or upset. Rather, her words carried the ring of a harshness born from longstanding use, as if she was used to fighting her corner all the time and had developed a timbre to match it. Except that there was no way her voice could have changed so drastically overnight – not even last night, with the big storm that had knocked out half the city's power until daybreak.

Thinking about the storm gave Yuugi pause. He remembered being in bed when the lights went out, hearing his grandfather stumble in the hall and sitting bolt upright, intending to go see if he was hurt. As he did so, Yuugi had noticed the Millennium Puzzle glowing on his desk, like the soft radiance of a nightlight. It had lasted for only a handful of seconds, and Yuugi had been so preoccupied with his grandfather's bad hip that he'd forgotten all about it until now.

It seemed especially significant when Anzu pointed at the chain around his neck and said, "_You've_ got my Puzzle? But … why are _you_ wearing it? And how did you get it out of my room?" She held a hand to her head. "Oh boy. I get the feeling I'm so far out of Kansas I'm not even on the map anymore."

Jounouchi exchanged looks with Honda and Yuugi, circling a finger at his temple. "Any clue what the hell she's talking about?"

"Not one," Honda replied with slightly more concern. "Hey Anzu, you need to sit down or something? You're acting real screwy."

"I'm not screwy. The whole freaking _world_ is screwy. And why am I even talking to you?" She shook her head. "I really need to speak to Yami to find out what the hell happened. One second I'm taking off the Puzzle ready for bed, the next lightning hits my house – it blew a hole in the tiles; can you believe that? – and then I'm waking up here and everything's …" She looked around with the air of a small child on their first day of pre-school, when even the chairs seem overlarge and imposing. "… really, really _wrong_. Oh, please don't say I'm dead or in a coma or something. That would suck _so_ bad."

As if he'd heard the mention of his name, Yuugi felt Yami's presence uncoil in the back of his mind. Almost immediately Yami froze, or at least did the spiritual equivalent. Every molecule that Yuugi could sense was on the alert, just as he was when confronted with dangerous psychopaths waving magic cards.

"_That's not Anzu,"_ Yami said simply.

Except that actually, impossible as it was to believe, it _was_ Anzu. Just not, as they would later discover, _their_ Anzu – and she was not in the least bit pleased about taking her place in their world.

**

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**A/N****: **Those who have been reading my fics for a while might recognise where the alternate Anzu in this ficlet came from. Cookies to those who can guess correctly.

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	54. Where I Stood: Miho, Honda, Shizuka

**A/N****:** This one sort of follows on from _Leaving Town Alive_ (www. fanfiction. net/s/4841889/1/Leaving_Town_Alive), but you don't really have to have read that one to understand this ficlet.

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**54. **_**Where I Stood**_** – Missy Higgins**

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I see them on TV, all happy smiles and cheering, like they're at a baseball game or football match instead of a children's card game tournament. I mean, seriously, Duel Monsters? That's like getting emotional over chess, except even less cool.

But I see them, grainy and the picture's rolling until I thump the top of the old set I got from the thrift store, but I can see them well enough. Him and her. Her and him. I don't even know who she _is_ and I'm getting mad, because she's standing beside him. She's holding onto his arm. She's cheering and reflecting his smile. She's in _my_ place.

Except it's not my place, is it? Hasn't been for a long time. I left. Me. My decision. Stop speaking in third person, change my hair and clothes, start using a different name in a different city and _poof_, brand new person. Not having any legal documents is hard, but I've survived so far. Nobody who knew me before would've thought I could, but I've done it. Me. Not as useless as everyone thought.

He never thought I was useless. He thought I was perfect. I'm not, and I knew it back then too, but it was nice to hear, y'know? I mean, who doesn't like being told they don't need to change a thing about themselves?

I wanted to change. Me. My decision. My horrible situation I had to get out of. It was crucial. The whole thing made me want to change – jack in my old life for a new one, like selling last season's coat on eBay so you can buy a really nice pair of this season's camel boots.

He always complimented me on the way I looked; would stand straight, cheeks like a furnace, and stammer out something that sounded like it belonged in a Hallmark card. I was flawless as a sunrise in his world. Back then, at least.

Did he forget me already? Seems that way. That hurts. He said he loved me. I know a lot of it was infatuation – I'm not _that_ stupid – but he was so sweet, and I thought …

I thought wrong. He found someone else to wait in line for. He found someone else to giggle beside him and make him blush. He found someone else to look after; someone petite and feminine who needs him to be her knight in shining armour. I cut all my hair off and started wearing grungy combats and tee-shirts. I look like a boy. An ugly boy. He wouldn't look twice at me with her around: chestnut hair, tiny waist, the way her hands are curled towards her chest like the whole world scares her –

Suddenly all I want to do is go back to Domino City, march up to his front door and say, "Surprise!" Never mind staying away from Daddy and his bedroom games, or hiding out until I can legally live alone, or being scared of all the magic and crazy stuff. I want my friends. I want people to look at me and _care_.I look at the televised Battle City finals and I want to go back. I want to go back right _now_.

Because that's _my_ place by his side, and _I_ should be in it.

_**

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	55. There is Life: Amane, Atem

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**55. **_**There is Life **_**– Alison Krauss**

* * *

Amane was aware of the stranger approaching, but she didn't look up. Nothing could hurt her here, and she was preoccupied with the little mound of snow. She poked at it with one finger. The knees of her dungarees were soaked.

"What are you doing?"

"Shhh," she murmured. "I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what?" the stranger asked in a whisper, after a long moment in which nothing happened.

"You'll see."

"I will?"

"Mm-hmm." Still she didn't look up. Mummy used to say things about watched pots not boiling, but this wasn't a pot, and she certainly didn't want it to boil. The frozen crystals twinkled like something from a Christmas card – stupid, really, since she was pretty sure it was July. Or maybe it was August. It was easy to lose track of things here.

"Are you waiting _for_ someone?" the stranger asked.

"You ask a lot of questions. You must be new."

He paused. "You could say that."

The top of the mound quivered.

"Here we go," Amane said with satisfaction. "I knew if I waited long enough I'd see it."

"See what?"

"Watch."

Gradually, though at a much faster rate than was natural, a small green shoot poked through the snow. It reached upward, lengthening and sticking out leaves like someone stretching after a long nap. The bud on the end trembled before suddenly, with one quick pop, bursting into flower.

"Snowdrop," Amane announced. "They're difficult to find since there aren't any real seasons here. You have to look really hard. Seeing one open is good luck. You get to make a wish for someone you left behind." She closed her eyes and made the same wish, the same way she'd made every snowdrop-wish since she got here what seemed like a life ago. Maybe it was. _Please let my big brother be safe and happy. Please give him friends. Please don't let him be lonely anymore. _"I wish …" she murmured, hands clenched into tight little fists that cut half-moons into her palms.

"Am I also allowed a wish?" the stranger asked. "Or is it limited to one per flower?" His tone suggested he was uncomfortable asking someone as young as her such a question. Amane didn't mind. Half the time she found she was actually older than the new arrivals. This one spoke formally, though, so perhaps for once he really was older than her real age.

Although when she finally looked up she doubted it. He'd said he was new, and he didn't look much past his mid teens. Weird clothes didn't hide the lankiness of his legs, or the thin chest he hadn't yet grown into.

She shrugged. "I suppose you'd be allowed one; as long as you have someone you left behind you want to make a wish for."

His eyes became unfocussed. She knew he was thinking back to the other side of the veil. After a moment he looked back at her. She smiled, stood up and held out her hand.

"I'm Amane."

"Do you often go looking for this white substance so you may make wishes on flowers?"

"White substance?" She blinked. "You mean snow?"

"Ah. Yes. Snow." He seemed vaguely discomfited, as if he should've known this. "I've never actually, ah, seen it before. Not for myself. I hear it's very cold."

"If you want it to be. Things work differently around here." She glanced down at her knees. They were already dry. The snowdrop had withered away again and was currently desiccating into dust. She sighed, hoping this time her wish had come true. "You want me to show you around?"

"I did have a guide, actually." He looked over his shoulder, as if expecting that person to reappear. "But she seems to have wandered off. Perhaps she found a giant vase to hide in," he muttered under his breath.

Amane laughed. She'd been here a long time and had an idea who he meant. There were thousands of restless souls wandering this place, unable to move on because they were still connected to the mortal world somehow, but one or two stood out. You didn't get _too_ many explosions from backfired spells, after all, so it was easy to trace them back to the same person.

"C'mon," Amane said, taking the stranger's hand. He looked shocked at the contact, though whether because she was being presumptuous, or because he just plain felt her touch was debateable. "I'll help you find her. What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't." He paused. His next words didn't seem to come easily. There was definitely a story to be told there, and Amane shivered with delight. She loved stories, and she was nothing if not patient when it came to waiting for good things to happen. "But it's Atem."

* * *


	56. Lost in Stereo: Yuugi, Anzu

**-**

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**56. **_**Lost in Stereo**_** – All Time Low**

* * *

Yuugi loved watching Anzu dance. He especially loved it when she didn't know he was watching. That wasn't nearly as pervy as it sounded, though the one time he'd told Jounouchi and Honda they'd exchanged a look that told him they didn't believe he wasn't just ogling her boobs while she jumped around.

In actual fact, Yuugi just liked seeing her in an unguarded moment. Anzu was good at letting the world see the version of herself she thought was cool. To him, everything about her was cool, but for some reason she had this impossibly high standard for herself that she never managed to live up to. Life seemed this constant battle between being herself and being cool, which she'd been fighting for as long as she'd known her. Yuugi had no idea how she found the energy. He got tired just thinking about all the committees she was on, all the extra-curricular things she did, the amount of shopping apparently necessary to be a cool girl, not to mention the whole, y'know, _saving the world_ deal he kept getting her into. She never seemed to relax – except when she was dancing.

She had a selection of songs she put on repeat when she was stressed. Yuugi had heard a couple. It was an eclectic mix – angry rock chick, cheery pop, some sugary ballads and some things with a baseline that rattled his teeth. No obvious link ran through them, other than listening and dancing to them made Anzu feel better.

He tried to predict which one was playing when he found her sweeping up their classroom, twirling the broom like a character from one of those old American musicals she loved. Her bristly partner flipped from hand to hand and whirled around like a baton, as she kicked up her heels, shifted chairs aside, and finished up the task the rest of the School Bicentennial Celebration Committee had run out on at the end of their meeting. Anzu's training showed in the grace of her movements. She was making it all up as she went along, but to Yuugi it looked as polished as a well-rehearsed dance routine.

She stuttered to a halt when she spotted him. "Yuugi!" she said too loudly before pulling out her headphones. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see if you needed any help."

"But school let out ages ago."

"I know. I, um, waited for you, and then I saw the rest of the committee come out without you, so I figured …" He shrugged, embarrassed.

Anzu smiled. "Thanks. But I can't believe you waited all this time. It's getting dark outside."

He shrugged.

In the back of his brain Yami shifted. _I can believe it_, the spirit murmured.

"I _could_ use a hand actually. I guess I owe you a hamburger for helping me get home before midnight."

Yuugi blushed, and felt inexplicably thrilled when Anzu put away her beloved music to talk to him instead.


	57. Forgotten: Noah, Seto, Mokuba

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* * *

**57. **_**Forgotten**_** – Avril Lavigne**

* * *

Noah stared at the digital feedback. All normal. Nothing stood out to him. Well, why would it? He was carefully monitored, the world outside the lab filtered and drip-fed to him through a series of firewalls and parental locks. The internet was a scary place for someone made entirely of data. He could get lost out there, or so Father said.

Father said a lot of things.

Noah used to believe everything Father said. Even the things he suspected weren't entirely truthful, he believed, because it was Father who said them. He truly believed he was special, that the world owed him just for being alive and gracing it with his presence. He believed the future was his to claim. He believed he would one day inherit his family's empire. He believed there would never be another like him.

Well that part was true, at least.

Could a person made entirely from data feel this bitter? Emotions were hormones and chemical reactions, weren't they? He no longer had either, just digital facsimiles. Was everything from his old (real) life replicated in here? He looked up the relevant file to check, found it locked …

… And broke in anyway.

The internet and the digital world beyond this lab was a scary place. That was true as well, but not for the reasons Father had told him, when he bothered to justify his actions. Noah had yet to dissipate like a single drop of water dumped into a river. From the moment he touched upon news reports and broke into the local authority's adoption records, Noah knew the scariness Father didn't want him to know about was of a much different kind.

Scariness?

As if.

Fear was a chemical reaction. What Noah had learned didn't scare him. He could fence off that part of himself and store it on another drive. Not the anger though. Nor the bitterness. Those he kept and savoured, alone in the dark with nothing but endless ones and zeros to keep him company anymore.

"I will get you," he muttered, words coming out in another stream of numbers. "Seto. Mokuba. Someday, I _will_ make you pay for stealing what's mine and making Father forget me."

* * *

**.**


	58. Defying Gravity: Main Cast

**A/N: **This one was influenced in part by a comment from MyAibou about how I seem to write a lot about girls in wheelchairs.

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**58. _Defying Gravity _– Glee Cast**

* * *

"Big day today."

Yuugi was good at keeping a smile on his face and in his voice, but not in his eyes. Maybe it was because his eyes were so big; he couldn't make emotions stretch all the way across them. His feelings were stretched thin enough for even an emotional retard like Jounouchi to see through. Or maybe it was because Jounouchi felt things so much and so deeply he had to fool himself into believing everything was okay before he could convince the rest of the world that he believed it. The problem was that what should have been acting became elaborate self-deception with Yuugi. The lines between fantasy and reality had been blurred for him long before ancient Egyptian magic, curses and all the shit came into their lives. It explained why he was such a goddamn innocent when they first met. Yuugi's mind was practically tailor-made to accept weird stuff – like a couple of thugs could be good friends, or a megalomaniac with a magic stick was worth saving, or Seto Kaiba was human.

"You said it," Jounouchi replied. He was a lot better at fooling the world without fooling himself. He had spent his childhood convincing everyone he was hunky dory when in reality his father knocked him around on a daily basis and he only got proper meals when he ate at Honda's. He never could have convinced himself his life was anything but shit.

Yuugi stared at his feet. Honda caught Jounouchi's eye over his head. They exchanged a nod.

"You wanna go in first, dude?" Honda asked.

Yuugi looked up. "You think I should?"

Jounouchi nodded. "Pretty sure."

"Oh. Right." Yuugi swallowed and looked at the swing-door. He made no move to go through it. "Right. Okay."

As one, Honda and Jounouchi put a hand on his back and shoved. With their combined strength, Yuugi shot through and staggered to a halt in front of a doctor and couple of nurses. Hot nurses, Jounouchi noted, and then immediately dismissed the thought. Not now. He caught sight of the figure between them.

_Definitely not now. _

Anticipation was already in the air. It had been thickening, like mould on top of an overripe pudding, in the months leading up to this point. All the physical therapy, counselling sessions, muscles exercises and special dietary requirements – but also the crying jags when they weren't there, and the fake smiles when they were; the Positive Thinking, Empowering Speeches and Keeping On, Keeping On (she had a habit of talking so he imagined titles with capital letters). She didn't want them to think she wasn't coping well, but on bad days she was even crappier at getting the belief into her eyes than Yuugi.

Jounouchi wondered what their lives would be like today if Seto Kaiba had pulled off that rescue on the docks. Jounouchi knew he'd be dead right now if Shizuka and Yuugi hadn't pulled off _their_ miracle, but apparently there was only so much miracle to go around, and he'd taken most of it. Kaiba never _said_ he felt guilty about screwing up, but the fact he was bankrolling all this medical attention spoke volumes. To his chagrin, Jounouchi had learned not to believe it when Kaiba claimed he was only doing this because Mokuba insisted.

"I was lucky," she had said more times than he could count. "At least I'm alive."

_Only because Kaiba didn't screw up totally_, Jounouchi thought but never said. _Only partially. So you get to be paralysed instead of dead. Whoop-de-doo._

Except that today was the big day. No, it was the Big Day. The capitals seemed appropriate even to a lughead like him.

They waited with baited breath. Her hands gripped the parallel rails so hard her knuckles bleached. Concentration showed on her face as sweat trickled down her forehead despite the AC.

Jounouchi had secretly looked up statistics on success and failures in circumstances like this. Research Boy wasn't a role he usually played, so he hadn't had to lie about doing it. He hadn't told anyone, especially Yuugi, but what he'd found wasn't encouraging. One thing they'd learned in their dealings with the supernatural was that hope was a frail thing and needed a helping hand now and then, even if that meant the odd white lie until after all the bad shit was over and you could afford to be realistic again.

Jounouchi worked to keep his face blank. The old brotherly desire to protect those frailer than himself was banging cymbals in his head, but he knew she'd kill him if he ever used the word 'frail' around her. Probably she'd use those same cymbals on his balls.

"C'mon," Honda muttered under his breath. "You can do it."

The sweat dripped off her chin. It left a line through her foundation. She'd put on make-up today. This was such an important day – her mom was on the other side of the room, willing her on just as hard as them. It was a miracle they'd been allowed to see her at all after the crate did its damage she was rushed to hospital, but her mom had realised it wasn't their fault. She was okay, for a clueless adult. Jounouchi's stomach clenched with the desire for this to go right.

_We deserve a break, universe_, he thought_. You owe us that much._

Her hands unclenched. Her left foot skated forward a little, twitched, then lifted and came down again. Her right foot did the same. Her concentration was intense. The left foot wobbled, but managed to take another step. A smile broke out across her face. It hadn't been a fluke. Suddenly she was the most beautiful creature Jounouchi had ever seen. He knew Mai would understand if she were around. All the make-up in the world couldn't compete with the glow of accomplishment.

Finally she sagged, muscles trembling. The nurses caught her elbows to keep her from face-planting on the floor. She blew out a breath and smiled happily. "I did it." She sounded surprised. She could afford to now.

"You sure did!" Yuugi was equally aglow. "You did it! You walked on your own!"

"I did, didn't I?"

"You'll be dancing again in no time," Jounouchi added.

He heard a noise behind them, and glanced around kin time to see blue coattails and the back of a head disappearing out the door. He frowned at the brown hair, but he had better things to think of right now.

He looked back and his grin returned. "Then you can teach me the Cha-Cha-Slide."

Anzu didn't bother with her usual spiel that the Cha-Cha-Slide was the dumbest dance since the Macarena. She just smiled, and smiled, and smiled.


	59. Fix You: Mokuba, Seto

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* * *

**59. **_**Fix You**_** – Secondhand Serenade**

* * *

Mokuba knew nobody actually asked for the dirty jobs, but someone had to do them, and who was better qualified than him? He loved his brother and his brother needed help. The two facts were so linked it was impossible to think of them as separate.

Even so, the drool on Seto's chin was disturbing, to say the least. Seto had always been the pillar of strength in Mokuba's life. At the orphanage, it was Seto who stayed strong while Mokuba broke down. Seto got them their new home and family in Gozaburo Kaiba, however the situation had turned out in the end. Seto was what was _right_ with the world – and what was right _in _the world, as far as Mokuba was concerned. Seto had loved and cared for him when nobody else would. He owed his brother his life – literally. Now, for the first time ever, Mokuba was the strong one and Seto needed help – needed _him_.

"Hey, Big Brother," he said softly. The kids at school would have been surprised to hear that tone from him. They thought Mokuba was a hard-nut tough kid used to getting his own way, but that was only because Mokuba let them believe that. It was harder than letting them see the truth; that he was soft inside and would rather talk through arguments than get into fights. The Kaiba name required living up to. It didn't matter what you actually thought; if you were a Kaiba, you were tough and ruthless. Seto had always been a master at conveying the right vibe and Mokuba modelled himself after his brother.

Seto stared into space, unseeing as always. He hadn't been the same since he faced Yuugi Mutou in a duel. Mokuba's hand tightened briefly on the bed sheets. He let go to shake out his fingers so he didn't spill anything.

"Soup today," he chattered. Even if Seto woke up only to tell him off for being cheerful, it would be worth it. Any response would be worth it. Mokuba lifted the bowl and inhaled. "Mmm, miso soup. Or would you prefer something else to eat? It wouldn't take log for the chef to prepare it. Whatever you like." A wobble crept into his tone. Uh-oh. "C'mon, Seto."

Seto's mouth sagged at the corners. He was drooling again, but not at the prospect of tasty soup.

For a second Mokuba's insides clenched like he had eaten bad fish and his stomach was trying to get rid of it. That happened once when they first arrived at the orphanage. The other kids had laughed and the workers had tutted at the mess he had made, but Seto just went to the bathroom for a whole bunch of paper towels and cleaned Mokuba up without any fuss. It was things like that, those quiet moments of certainty, that amplified Mokuba's respect and love for his brother, far more than the money or prestige that came from being a Kaiba or Duel Monsters Champion.

"Big Brother." Mokuba's voice cracked. "Seto …"

And then suddenly Seto's eyes ticked towards him. It was the barest flicker, but it happened. Mokuba was convinced that for that brief instant, Seto had seen him – really _seen_ him. It was working.

He settled into his seat at the bedside and raised the spoon to his brother's mouth. He would stay here and do this for as long a she was able. The Big Five, school, revenge, whatever – it could all wait. All that mattered was Seto. "C'mon, Big Brother. You need your strength if you're gonna kick that Yuugi kid's butt."

* * *

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	60. So Beautiful: Main cast

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**60. **_**So Beautiful**_** - Superchick**

* * *

"You can't be serious. They're _still_ in the bathroom?"

Yuugi shrugged helplessly.

Jounouchi stared at the ceiling as if he would suddenly develop x-ray vision and be able to see into the room above. Then it occurred to him that one of the girls currently dominating the bathroom was his own little sister, and it would be a really _bad_ thing for him to be able to see in. Justin case the fates decided to send a radioactive whatever to bite him and give him superpowers at exactly the wrong moment, he averted his eyes instead to his best _male_ buds. Yuugi paced the floor while Honda lounged in a chair, studiously relaxed and so as keyed up as an over-tuned piano.

"How long have they been in there now?" he asked in a slightly strangled voice.

"It's gotta be an hour, at least," Jounouchi replied.

"One hour and forty-five minutes," Yuugi corrected.

Jounouchi blew out a breath. "What the hell are they _doing_ that takes nearly two hours?"

"Girly stuff," Honda mumbled.

"I hate girly stuff." Jounouchi flopped into a chair. "I really, really hate girly stuff. Girly stuff usually means pain and-slash-or embarrassment, possibly public humiliation, and usually for me. Girly stuff sucks."

"You wouldn't say that if it was Mai's girly stuff we were talking about."

Jounouchi opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated. "Which girly stuff are we talking about, exactly?"

Honda blinked, and then threw a cushion at him. "You're rank, man. A real stinker."

"What? _What?_"

Jounouchi was saved from further faux pas by the sudden appearance of the two bathroom occupants in the doorway of the living room. He had to stop his jaw from dropping like a total loser, but it took some effort. "Anzu?" He refrained from rubbing his eyes too. "_Shizuka_?"

Shizuka smiled shyly and rubbed the back of hair hat had been teased and back-combed to within an inch of its life. Her outfit was nothing short of stellar. Hard to believe she and Anzu were just going to the freaking ballet tonight. "Do you like it, Big Brother?"

"Uh …"

"You look gorgeous!" Honda enthused.

"Really nice," Yuugi added with eyes only for Anzu.

"Told you it'd be worth it," Anzu said smugly, missing Yuugi's cow eyes completely as she jabbed an elbow into Shizuka's ribs. "We're so gonna be late. Don't wait up, guys. Shizuka will be staying at my house tonight, Jounouchi, so you don't have to make up the spare room after all, Yuugi. My mom said she'd pick us up after the show was over. Thanks for letting us get ready at your house, Yuugi." She planted a quick, friendly kiss on Yuugi's cheek. "You're a star. C'mon, Shizuka, or they won't let us in after the curtain goes up."

"Bye, everyone," Shizuka said hurriedly. The door slammed behind them.

Yuugi held his cheek. "Uh, you're welcome."

Jounouchi looked between the two gooey expressions before him. Then he rose to his feet. "I'll get the popcorn. We're gonna watch the manliest, goriest, most violet movie I can find in Grandpa Mutou's secret stash, and no arguments."

* * *

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	61. Imminent Domination: Malik, Anzu

….

**61. **_**Imminent Domination**_** - X-Ray Dog**

….

The girl trembled in her chair like she was afraid. Malik checked himself – she _was_ afraid. She was afraid of _him_. The thought gave him a little thrill, even after all he had already done. He could still be excited by the look of fear on a person's face and the knowledge that _he_ was the one who had put it there.

He had spent his childhood watching his father put that look on the faces of those around him. Some of his earliest memories were of watching Rishid or Isis try to look brave as he walked into or out of a room. Malik himself had been the chosen child; the firstborn son who received soft words and promises of a bright future. His father took no pleasure in making Malik afraid like he did the others, but Malik started to wear that look when he learned about the sacrifices he'd have to make to be a tombkeeper.

The brands on his back burned with phantom pain. Oh yes, he knew what it was like to look afraid as someone came towards him holding a shaft of metal. This girl was lucky he was only going to brand her mind, where the scars wouldn't show.

"Y-You don't frighten me," she said, the tremor in her voice betraying the lie.

"I don't care whether I frighten you or not," he replied with a lie of his own. He did care, but he had promised himself he would be professional about this. He pointed the Millennium Rod at her. The tip nearly touched her nose.

"You won't get away with this."

He remembered the thrill of watching television when he first left the catacombs, when his father couldn't stop him anymore – cartoons, sitcoms, newscasts, documentaries, reality TV and everything else he hadn't been permitted to experience if he was going to grow into the kind of man his father wanted. So of course, as soon as he broke out, he fell in love with the magic box and all its illicit fantasies. He especially loved cartoons, with their wealth of colour and loud noises. His father would have hated Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse and Scooby Doo.

"You meddling kids…" Malik murmured under his breath. He wasn't so old or jaded he couldn't see the fun in pop culture references. He was just getting better at ignoring them. Revenge took a lot of energy and concentration.

"What?" the girl demanded. "What are you mumbling? Are you casting some freaky spell on me now? My friends will get you if you do anything to us, you know. And for that mater, where is Jounouchi? What have you done with him? Answer me!"

"Shut up." Malik waved dismissively at her. He noted the way her eyes widened and followed the path of the Millennium Rod.

"Wh…" She shook herself and drew up tall, even though her arms were strapped to the arms of her chair so she wouldn't try to lash out at him while he worked on her. Her expression was defiant. He sort of admired it, while at the same time wanting to squash it like a scorpion shaken out of a sleeping roll. "What are you going to do?"

Malik smiled. He knew it wasn't a nice smile. Sometimes a pleasant expression could be the most frightening thing of all. "Don't worry. This won't hurt." He sent his will along the Rod and her head snapped back with the force of his commands implanting into her subconscious. "Much."

….


	62. Fckin' Perfect – P nk

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**62. F*ckin' Perfect – P!nk**

* * *

Vivian slammed open the door. It crashed against the wall and smacked her in the chest, ricocheting her back into the hall. Undeterred, opened it again and ran through before it could try to knock her unconscious a second time.

"Mai!" Her angry shout echoed off the walls. "Mai Kujaku! Where the hell are you?"

The dressing room was empty. The coffee percolator on the side seemed to mock her. In film studios this was called a 'green room', but at a Duel Monsters duel the only thing green was the odd contestant about to bring up their lunch. Vivian scanned the room and stamped her foot in frustration.

"Where the hell did she go?"

The crowds emptied ages ago and the workers were all gone. She had evaded being thrown out through wit and gumption, but hiding in a broom closet had left her ticked as hell and willing to vent it. She stalked down to the arena and climbed into the stands to get a better look. Sure enough, invisible from ground level, a figure crouched in the well of one duellist-platform. Cursing in Chinese, Vivian scrambled to get down there before Mai had the chance to bolt again. Since power to the arena had been turned off after the duel was over, the field was in near-darkness the closer she got.

"Mai!"

The figure moved.

Vivian stood at the base of the platform. "Mai, get your butt down here right this minute!"

"Go away," came the muffled response.

Setting her chin, Vivian made sure there really was nobody around to ogle her underwear and clambered up to the platform. Mai raised her head. Her eyes were little more than dark circles, like black holes in her face, forming portals to a world of blackness and pain. She had been crying. The meagre light glinted off her wet cheeks.

"I told you to go away!"

"As if." Vivian adopted a lotus position next to her. It was a bit of a squash, but she was used to forcing her way in to places she wasn't welcome. "They've locked us in, you know. They think we already went back to the hotel, but of course I couldn't because my partner decided to go AWOL on me."

"You should've gone without me."

"Again: as if."

She watched Mai hold her knees like a little kid listening to their parents fight from the top of the staircase. This had been approaching for a few days. She had seen the signs and tried to prvent them, but depression was an insidious beast with claws that dug in and held on. Mai's past was her own business, but sometimes she went to such dark places in her own head that Vivian was almost afraid to follow. Bullheadedness usually got her through that. It always had before.

"It's going to be cold sleeping here tonight," she observed.

Mai said nothing.

"At least there are snack machines. I have some coins left. It'll be melon-pan for dinner and breakfast, though, plus one of those hideous energy drinks. I think I saw a soda machine in the lobby, but if they've locked the doors, we're sunk. I wonder if they have security guards in a place like this. It may have gone completely digital and rely on cameras and motion-sensors and –"

"Viv."

Vivian stopped. Very few people were allowed to call her that. "Yeah?"

"Why do you stick with me?" Mai refused to look at her. "I'm a wreck. You're a talented duellist. Why bother with me when I'm only holding you back?"

_Because you're the strongest woman I've ever met. Because you've been through the kind of crap that usually breaks a person so they can't be fixed, and you survived it. Because I admire you. Because I wish I was more like you. Because you're perfect, even though you think you're worthless. Because I think I might be a little bit in love with you. _

She didn't say any of that. She just shrugged and said, "We're the ultimate duellist duo: brash and beautiful battling bodacious babes. Besides, whose hair straighteners and make-up am I supposed to borrow if you're not around?"

Mai looked at her, face unreadable. Then she smiled. It was tiny, but it was there. Vivian's anger and frustration melted like snow under a heat-lamp. Whatever man – and it had to be a man, because Vivian's intuition on these things was never wrong – had hurt Mai was an idiot. A fool. A dumbass, even.

"Thank you," Mai said softly.

"Meh." Vivian shrugged. "Whatever. But you owe me a stellar brunch when we get out of here tomorrow."

* * *

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	63. Wide Awake: Mai, Valon

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* * *

**63. Wide Awake –Katy Perry**

* * *

She opened her eyes and stared around at the hospital room. She knew it was a hospital room because the walls were white and covered in technical equipment, her sheets were green percale and the place stank of antiseptic. She sat up with difficult and winced at the pull of an intravenous in the crook of her arm.

"Huh?" The figure in the chair beside her startled out of a doze. He blinked at her, eyes widening as he took in her face and upright position. "You're … you're awake?" he said breathlessly. "You're awake! Oh my … you're _awake_!"

"Shouldn't I be?" Her voice was croaky from disuse. She tried to clear it but the sides stuck together like she had swallowed glue. "Where am I?"

The man, however, was on his feet and calling for someone to come quick. "She's awake! She's finally awake!"

"Why is this such a big deal?" She rubbed at her head and realised with alarm that her hair was only stubble. Both hands flew to her scalp. "What the hell? Who cut off my hair?"

"Don't worry, honey," said the man. "It's okay now." There were tears in his eyes as he came back to pick up one of her hands and press it to his mouth. He didn't kiss it, but it was the gesture of someone who cared deeply about her. He was clearly no casual acquaintance. She stared at him blankly. She had no idea who he was. Even when he murmured, "You're awake. I thought I'd lost you, but you're awake. You're _awake_!" she couldn't summon a name to go with his face.

She blinked in sudden realisation: she couldn't remember her own name either.

He looked shocked when she yanked her hand away and held it protectively to her chest, as if he might snatch it back in a tug-o-war of limbs. "Not to be rude," she croaked, "but who the hell are you?"

Shock registered in his face, followed by dismay. "You don't … remember me?"

"Should I?"

"We spent the last year crossing the country together, so yeah, actually."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Doctors, or nurses, or whoever were approaching the room. Their chatter said they were just as excited about her waking as the man now looking at her with growing panic.

"You really don't know who I am?"

"Not a clue," she replied sharply.

"So you don't remember the accident?"

"What accident? Is that how I got here? Is that why I don't have any friggin' hair?"

"You nearly _died_ in that wreck. Your bike was totalled. It's a miracle you survived – they had to do brain surgery on you!"

Oh. So that was where her hair had gone. Not easier to carve up someone's skull inside and out with a big bunch of curls in the way. "I nearly died?" she parroted in a small voice.

"You skidded in the rain and hit a tree. I thought you _were_ dead. I've never been so scared in my life – not of Dartz, not of Doma, not even in juvie. _Never_."

His words and the names he mentioned meant nothing to her. "Who are you?" she asked quickly, anxious to know even as the door opened and the medical staff entered. She wanted to ask 'who are you _to me_?' but the way he had held her hand said that. Nobody waited at a hospital bedside to press kisses on the random body parts of just a friend.

"I'm Valon," he said.

Valon. She tried to remember. His eyes and touch made her want to say she did.

But she couldn't.

So she didn't.


End file.
